Patient No. 417
“I dreamed of that city again.”
The woman spoke quietly. As if afraid someone might be listening behind the door.
Lina didn’t look up from her notebook.
“What did you see this time?”
“The same street.”
“And?”
“It was empty.”
Silence.
“What was strange about it?”
The woman clasped her hands together.
“People.”
“But you said the street was empty.”
“Yes.”
She fell silent.
After a few seconds, she added:
“They were walking. Only… they had no shadows.”
Lina closed the notebook.
For the first time in the entire session, she looked the patient directly in the eyes.
“How many times have you dreamed of this city?”
“I don’t know.”
“Roughly.”
“Maybe… six months.”
“And before that?”
“Never.”
Lina nodded.
She said nothing.
She simply set down her pen.
The patient left.
The office fell silent.
Lina walked over to the shelf.
She pulled out a thick black notebook.
There was no title on the cover.
Only a number.
She opened it to the last page.
Beneath it, she wrote a single sentence.
“The same city. Fifth person this week.”
She closed the notebook.
The window reflected the office.
For a moment, it seemed her reflection was still writing.
Lina blinked.
Everything was in its place.
She smiled.
“You’re working too much.”
She had been telling herself that for months now.
Lina was not a mystic.
And certainly not a witch.
She was a psychologist.
At least, that’s what it said on her office door.
Dr. Lina Vaitkutė. Analytical Psychology.
People came to her because of anxiety.
Because of depression.
Because of divorce.
Because of panic.
They left talking about childhood.
About their parents.
About their dreams.
Sometimes about themselves.
She hated quick answers.
She never told anyone what to do.
She only asked questions.
Some grew angry because of this.
Others never came back.
A third kind returned after a year.
Always with the same phrase.
“Your question never let go of me.”
That evening she walked home.
She could have driven.
But the city revealed itself best on foot.
People walked with their heads down.
Staring at their phones.
Talking through earphones.
Passing each other without ever meeting eyes.
Lina liked to watch.
One man laughed loudly.
His shoulders were rigid.
A woman smiled.
Her fists were clenched.
A teenager looked calm.
His breathing was as fast as if he were running.
People almost never lied with their bodies.
Only with words.
At the intersection, she stopped.
Red light.
The glass tower’s wall reflected the entire city.
She looked at herself.
Something was wrong.
Not her face.
Not her gaze.
The timing.
She took a step.
Her reflection remained standing.
For less than a second.
But long enough.
Then it walked on.
As if nothing had happened.
Lina didn’t flinch.
Cars behind her began honking.
Someone cursed.
She turned around.
Everything was normal.
When she looked at the glass again, her reflection was already walking beside her.
That night she didn’t go home.
She didn’t understand why herself.
Her feet turned toward the old town.
Not the part tourists photographed.
An even older part of the city.
Where the pavement was uneven.
Where the walls seemed to remember more than people did.
Where footsteps echoed in narrow streets even when you walked alone.
She rarely came here.
But every time, she felt the same thing.
As if this part of the city was waiting for her.
In the courtyard of an old church, someone was collecting glass shards.
No.
Mirror shards.
An old woman.
A wool coat.
Gray hair.
A small cloth bag.
She gathered each piece as carefully as if touching a bird’s bones.
Lina stopped.
“Why do you need so many broken mirrors?”
The woman didn’t look up.
“They didn’t break.”
“Then what happened?”
“People left them behind.”
Lina stayed silent.
“Mirrors never break on their own.”
Only then did the woman look at her.
Her eyes were strangely alive.
Not old.
Alive.
“You’ve already begun to see.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Do we know each other?”
“Not yet.”
“How do you know what I see?”
“Because you stopped.”
“Many people would have stopped.”
“No.”
The woman shook her head.
“Most would have walked faster.”
She picked up one mirror shard.
Held it out to Lina.
“Take it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re still asking.”
Lina didn’t take it.
“Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Still.”
The woman smiled.
“People call me the Bone Collector.”
“And you?”
“I no longer call myself by names.”
She placed the shard in Lina’s palm.
“When the time comes, you’ll understand why mirrors break before people do.”
She turned around.
Walked away.
Lina stood there.
In her palm lay a small piece of glass.
In it, only one of her eyes was reflected.
And somehow it seemed that eye wasn’t looking at the world.
It was looking at her.