The Memory Thief

The Vanishing Patient

The call came at 3:17 AM—my editor’s voice tight with something worse than urgency. Fear.

"Get to St. Vincent’s. Room 413. Ask for Daniel Gray."

The hospital corridors smelled of antiseptic and something darker, like wet copper. Room 413’s door stood ajar, the bed empty except for a single Polaroid.

It showed a man with wide, panicked eyes—my eyes—holding today’s newspaper. The scrawled message on the back stopped my breath:

"They’re not curing patients. They’re replacing them."

Then the lights flickered, and the heart monitor began beeping—though no one lay on the bed.

Chapter 2: The Perfect Replicas

Dr. Lorne’s explanation was too smooth.

"Daniel Gray suffered dissociative amnesia. Discharged this morning."

But the security footage she showed me was wrong. The man leaving had Daniel’s face, Daniel’s gait—but paused to straighten his tie in a way Daniel never would.

I dug deeper. Three more "recovered" patients this month:

A grandmother who no longer recognized her grandchildren

A veteran who forgot his war medals

A pianist who stared at keys like they were alien

All discharged "healthy." All subtly wrong.

And all treated in Ward C—the permanently locked wing even staff couldn’t access.

Chapter 3: The Night Nurse’s Confession

I found Nurse Patel smoking behind the hospital at dawn.

"They call it The Adjustment," she whispered, crushing her cigarette. "You know how coma patients sometimes wake up speaking new languages? St. Vincent’s found a way to... enhance that."

Her hands shook as she described the machines in Ward C—glowing tanks where patients floated in blue liquid, electrodes mapping their brains.

"The first few came back fine. Then last month, Mr. Carter woke up screaming in Mandarin—a language he’d never learned. When we sedated him..."

She showed me her phone. Security footage of Carter’s empty bed, the sheets moving as if someone invisible thrashed beneath them.

Chapter 4: The Donor List

The hospital director’s office yielded the truth.

A ledger labeled "Donor Matches" listed patients alongside corporate executives, politicians, billionaires. Dates correlated with "miraculous recoveries" from terminal illnesses.

The connection? Every "donor" had undergone The Adjustment before suddenly dying of "complications."

My fingers traced the most recent entry:

"Daniel Gray → Robert Kaine (Tech CEO, pancreatic cancer)"

Kaine had been photographed yesterday—alive and healthy—using Daniel’s signature hand gesture.

While the real Daniel Gray was still missing.

Chapter 5: The Procedure

They caught me in Ward C.

The room wasn’t a hospital ward at all—it was a laboratory. Glass tanks lined the walls, each holding a naked, floating body. All connected to a central machine humming with stolen memories.

Dr. Lorne adjusted the IV dripping into my arm. "Don’t worry. Mr. Kaine needs your investigative instincts. You’ll live on in him."

The last thing I saw before the sedatives hit was my own body already floating in a tank beside me—eyes open, screaming soundlessly.

Chapter 6: The Byline

The article published under my name today is perfect.

"St. Vincent’s Breakthrough: Curing the Incurable"

My hands type words I didn’t write. My mouth gives interviews praising procedures I know are monstrous.

Because I’m not me anymore.

The real me is still in that tank.

And when I pass mirrors, my reflection mouths two words in perfect sync with my thoughts:

"Help us."