Juson did not move away immediately.
The door to Room 17 had already closed, yet his eyes remained fixed upon it.
The corridor around him felt strangely quiet.
Only the distant sounds of hospital activity drifted through the building. Footsteps. Wheels rolling across floors. Voices that seemed to come from far away.
Yet none of those sounds held his attention.
His mind remained occupied by a single word.
Memory.
Hakiten's voice echoed inside his head.
I need to tell you about my memories.
The statement had been simple.
Yet something about it unsettled him.
Juson lowered his eyes.
"Memory," he muttered quietly.
The word felt heavier the second time.
He stood there for several more seconds before finally turning around.
Then he began walking.
The washroom was located towards the left side of the corridor.
His footsteps echoed softly as he moved away from Room 17.
A dozen steps later, he arrived outside the washroom area.
Before entering, he paused.
His eyes moved briefly around the corridor.
Nothing seemed unusual.
Patients moved occasionally between rooms.
A nurse passed through another section of the hallway.
Everything appeared normal.
Satisfied, he stepped forward.
A narrow corridor connected the main hall to the washroom area.
Juson walked through it.
Only a few steps later, the corridor opened into a square room.
Unlike most of the hospital, this area appeared cleaner and brighter.
White tiles covered the floor.
White tiles covered the walls.
Small washrooms occupied the edges of the room.
The place felt isolated from the rest of the building.
Juson chose one of the stalls and stepped inside.
The door clicked shut behind him.
For a while, nothing happened.
The hospital remained quiet.
The world remained normal.
Half a minute later, he finished his work.
His hand reached towards the lock.
He intended to leave immediately.
Then something felt wrong.
At first he could not explain it.
There was no sound.
No movement.
No visible change.
Yet a strange sensation suddenly passed through him.
It felt as though the atmosphere itself had shifted.
As though something around him had become different.
His hand paused on the lock.
For several seconds he stood still.
Then he shook his head.
Perhaps he was imagining things.
After everything that had happened recently, his mind was probably exhausted.
He unlocked the door and stepped outside.
The moment he emerged from the stall, he stopped.
A single bulb hung above the room.
It began flickering.
Unevenly.
The light flashed once.
Twice.
Then several more times.
The brightness changed constantly.
Juson stared upwards.
His first thought was simple.
Electrical failure.
Hospitals experienced technical problems like any other building.
There was nothing unusual about that.
At least that was what he wanted to believe.
The bulb continued flickering.
The shadows around him stretched and collapsed repeatedly.
Darkness.
Light.
Darkness.
Light.
Something about the pattern felt wrong.
The flickering wasn't random.
It felt unnatural.
The sensation he had experienced inside the stall returned immediately.
Stronger this time.
Juson's heartbeat increased.
His eyes moved around the room.
Nothing appeared different.
Yet the feeling refused to disappear.
Several more seconds passed.
Then suddenly the flickering stopped.
The light became stable once again.
For a brief moment, relief crossed his face.
Then he looked around.
And froze.
The room was no longer the same.
Everything had changed.
Not gradually.
Not naturally.
Instantly.
The transformation had happened within a blink.
Juson stood motionless.
His mind struggled to process what he was seeing.
The white tiled floor had vanished.
The walls were no longer bright.
Every surface around him had become darker.
Older.
The room looked unfamiliar despite being identical in shape.
It felt as though something else had replaced it.
Not renovated.
Not damaged.
Replaced.
The air itself felt different.
Colder.
Heavier.
The silence deepened.
For several seconds Juson simply stood there.
Unable to move.
Unable to understand.
His eyes moved across every corner of the room.
Searching for an explanation.
There wasn't one.
The hospital washroom had become something else.
Something that should not exist.
His breathing became shallow.
Questions flooded his mind.
Was he hallucinating?
Had he fallen asleep?
Was this a side effect of stress?
Nothing made sense.
A quarter of a minute passed.
Then it happened again.
Without warning.
The world shifted.
The darkness vanished.
The room returned.
The white tiles reappeared.
The familiar walls returned.
The hospital washroom stood exactly as it had before.
Everything was normal.
Every detail.
Every surface.
Every corner.
As though nothing had happened at all.
Juson remained frozen.
His heartbeat pounded against his chest.
The room appeared ordinary now.
Yet he could not convince himself that he had imagined it.
The memory remained too clear.
Too immediate.
He remembered every detail.
The darker walls.
The altered floor.
The unnatural atmosphere.
All of it had been real.
Or at least it had felt real.
His hands tightened unconsciously.
At that moment, he could not even process what he had witnessed.
The experience felt impossible.
Like a dream forced into reality.
Like a hallucination that had somehow touched the physical world.
For several more seconds he remained standing there.
Waiting.
Watching.
Expecting the room to change again.
Nothing happened.
The hospital remained silent.
The bulb remained steady.
Everything appeared normal.
Eventually, Juson forced himself to move.
He immediately left the washroom.
His pace quickened.
The square room disappeared behind him.
Then the narrow corridor.
Then the main hallway.
He did not look back once.
Not a single time.
Whatever had happened in that washroom, he did not want to see it again.
Not yet.
Because deep inside, a disturbing thought had already begun forming.
The hospital had not changed.
Something else had.
And if what he had witnessed was real, then whatever had happened inside that washroom was only the beginning.