The Thirteenth Vanishing Day

Chapter 1: The Non-Existent 13th PatientChapter 1: The Non-Existent 13th Patient

The air in the clinic was always suffused with a faint, clean blend of cedarwood essence and cold coffee. Dr. Lucas Vance sat at his expansive mahogany desk, massaging his throbbing temples. As a well-regarded psychologist in the city, his schedule was perpetually packed, but lately, he had been falling into an eerie, bone-deep fatigue—his short-term memory was quietly leaking away like sand through a sieve.

To cope with this intermittent memory impairment, Lucas had developed a rigorously strict recording habit. Whether it was patient consultation logs, prescription slips, or the clinic's surveillance journal, he archived everything meticulously.

It was eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night. Lucas opened his computer as usual, preparing for his weekly clinical review. As his cursor glided across the electronic medical record database, his finger suddenly froze in mid-air.

The case files were arranged in numerical order, but starting from last week, an extra folder had appeared—[File ID: 013 - Morgan Vance]. (Note: Wait, Morgan?) Lucas frowned. His clinic followed a minimalist management model; the number of long-term intervention patients accepted each month never exceeded 12.

He clicked on the folder. Inside was a detailed, two-week log of clinical sessions: "Morgan, 31, severe paranoid personality disorder, accompanied by strong antisocial tendencies. Scheduled visits every Monday through Friday at precisely 5:00 PM..."

A chill crept up the back of Lucas’s spine. 5:00 PM? That was his designated daily break and administrative hour. In his memory, not a single patient had ever visited the clinic during that time slot.

He immediately pulled up the clinic's cloud surveillance footage. Dragging the progress bar, the image stopped at 5:00 PM last Wednesday.

On screen, the glass door of the clinic pushed open, and a lean young man in a dark gray trench coat walked in. Lucas watched himself on camera rise with a warm smile, pour the visitor a glass of warm water, and sit down across from him on the sofa, conversing cheerfully. The entire process lasted a full hour until 6:00 PM, when the man stood up to leave, and Lucas even politely walked him to the door.

Lucas stared at the screen, cold sweat instantly soaking through his shirt.

In his own mind, that hour was an absolute blank. Not only did he have no recollection of a man named Morgan, but he couldn't even remember sitting face-to-face with such a stranger for a full hour, five times over.

On the surveillance video, Morgan suddenly turned his head just before leaving, casting a faint smile toward the camera lens. There was no warmth in that smile—only the playful mockery of someone who saw right through everything.

Chapter 2: The Ubiquitous Fog

The next morning, Lucas arrived at the clinic with dark, bruised circles under his eyes. Instead of startling the snake in the grass, he immediately summoned his administrative assistant, Sarah, and his deputy of many years, Dr. Liam Miller.

"Sarah, help me check all appointment and billing records from last week through this week, especially the name Morgan." Lucas tried to keep his tone flat and casual.

Sarah flipped through the computer files, looking somewhat puzzled. "Dr. Vance, there’s no one named Morgan in the billing system. On our appointment schedule, 5:00 PM every day is marked as your private break time. You specifically instructed us not to book anyone then."

A tightening knot formed in Lucas's chest. He turned to Dr. Miller. "Liam, when you leave around 5:00 PM, have you ever seen a man in a gray trench coat in the hallway or by the elevators?"

Liam, holding his coffee mug, paused for a moment and chuckled. "Old friend, have you been working too hard lately? Hundreds of people pass through this office building every day, and plenty wear gray trench coats. But honestly, you look terrible lately. Is your memory acting up again? Maybe you should take a few days off and get a brain MRI at the hospital."

Everyone was telling him: Morgan doesn't exist.

Even his wife, Chloe, during dinner when Lucas brought up the name, simply squeezed his hand gently, her eyes filled with tender worry: "Luke, you've been under too much stress lately. Last weekend you kept talking to the empty air and saying someone was in the study... Why don't we suspend the clinic for a little while?"

The reactions of everyone around him all pointed to one terrifying implication: Morgan was merely a product of his deteriorating memory and psychological hallucinations.

Lucas fell into a state of unprecedented isolation and self-doubt. Could I actually be losing my mind?

Late that night, Lucas sat alone in his dark office, refusing to turn on the lights. He opened his computer and played the surveillance footage once more. This time, he zoomed in to the absolute maximum.

At minute 34 of the video, Morgan on screen reached out to take the glass of water Lucas handed him. Lucas stared intently at Morgan’s fingers—across the knuckles of his right hand was a deep, crescent-shaped scar.

Simultaneously, Lucas scribbled down a sentence from Morgan’s medical record onto a notepad: "The deepest cage is not made of iron bars, but of the memories you construct for yourself."

This was far too coherent to be a simple hallucination. Hallucinations didn't leave behind such distinct physical details and logically structured conversational records on a security camera. Someone was lying—or rather, the entire world was conspiring to cover up Morgan's existence.

Chapter 3: The Watcher in the Mirror

Lucas decided he could no longer rely on anyone else's testimony; he had to find the truth himself.

Following the residential address registered in Morgan's medical file, he tracked it down to a dilapidated apartment building on the outskirts of the city. Pushing open the unlocked door, a wave of moldy air rushed out to meet him.

The interior furnishing was stark—just a bed, a chair, and an entire wall covered in photographs.

When Lucas registered what was on that wall, the blood in his veins seemed to freeze solid.

It was plastered with photographs, and there was only one subject—Lucas himself. There were photos of him consulting patients at the clinic, shopping at the supermarket, walking in the park with his wife Chloe, and even writing at his desk at home. Every single photo was annotated with dense timestamps and behavioral analysis.

At the very center of the photo wall, a red marker circled a single date: October 13.

Frantic, Lucas began tearing through the room. At the bottom of a desk drawer, he found a hardbound journal. The handwriting was wild and arrogant:

"Day 1: He hasn't noticed yet. His memory-blocking agent is working beautifully."

"Day 5: He is starting to doubt his own mind. Exactly what I wanted."

"Day 12: Chloe is cooperating wonderfully, and Dr. Miller is guiding his attention right on schedule. He’ll soon fully believe he's losing his mind."

Lucas’s hands shook violently.

Chloe? Dr. Liam Miller? They were all in on it together?

If even the people closest to him were plotting against him, just who was this man named Morgan? Why go to such exhaustive lengths to make Lucas believe he was suffering from a mental illness?

Stumbling out of the apartment, Lucas drove back home. Taking advantage of Chloe being busy in the kitchen, he quietly slipped down into the basement storage room, which was usually kept locked.

Chloe had always claimed the basement was packed with old furniture and junk, and that the key had long since been lost. But this time, Lucas used tools he brought back from the clinic to forcefully break the iron padlock.

By the weak beam of a flashlight, Lucas pushed the door open.

There was no junk inside the basement. Instead, there were several humming server towers, alongside a set of professional psychological hypnosis and audio-sampling equipment. And sitting right on a table in the center of the room was a thick medical file, the title bearing a chilling name:

《Project Proposal: Post-Trauma Memory Reconstruction and Hypnotic Intervention for Lucas Vance》

On the signature page of the document, Lucas saw three names: Chloe Vance, Dr. Liam Miller, and... Morgan.

Pinned to the very top of the file was an old newspaper clipping from years ago:

《Major Traffic Accident on coastal road 5 years ago: Chloe’s brother—wait, Lucas’s sister, Rachel Vance, tragically killed; hit-and-run driver Morgan still at large...》

Chapter 4: Day Thirteen, Hunter and Prey

All the fragmented puzzle pieces snapped together in a horrifying revelation.

Standing in the pitch-black basement, Lucas watched as the memories he had sealed away and forgotten came flooding back like a tidal wave.

He remembered. He remembered everything.

Five years ago, his younger sister Rachel was struck down by a drunk driver named Morgan, who fled the scene, leaving her to die on the pavement. Sheltered by family wealth and fabricated evidence, Morgan escaped legal justice, casually dismissing the tragedy as an "unfortunate accident."

The authorities could do nothing against Morgan, but Lucas refused to give up. As a top expert in psychology and neurological hypnosis, Lucas spent three full years meticulously architecting a grand, inescapable design.

He hadn't lost his mind at all. The supposed "short-term memory loss" was a deliberate side-effect of micro-dosing specialized agents he administered to himself to lower Morgan's guard!

The notion that "Morgan was Patient #13 at the clinic" wasn't a case of Morgan infiltrating Lucas's life. Rather, half a year ago, taking advantage of Morgan's psychological vulnerability, Lucas had lured him step-by-step into the clinic, subjecting him to repeated, deep hypnotic sessions and reverse mental conditioning!

Those dialogues captured on the surveillance footage were the result of Lucas methodically dismantling and rebuilding Morgan's consciousness under hypnosis, even planting the false memory that Morgan himself was the mastermind pulling the strings!

As for Chloe and Liam—they had never betrayed him. Quite the contrary, they were the most loyal executors of Lucas's vengeance plan. To prevent Morgan's wealthy family from growing suspicious, they played their parts to perfection in the grand performance of "Dr. Vance's mental breakdown and failing memory," ensuring Morgan believed he had total control over Lucas, walking right into the ultimate trap.

Click. The basement lights snapped on with blinding brilliance.

Chloe and Liam stood at the doorway. There was no trace of their usual anxiety or feigned worry in their eyes; instead, a heavy, resolute solemnity hung in the air.

"Luke," Chloe’s voice trembled slightly. "Today is day thirteen. The hypnotic blocking agent has worn off. You’re finally awake."

Lucas turned slowly, looking at his wife. His gaze shifted from bewilderment to an edge of absolute, chilling frost. "Where is Morgan?"

Liam pointed toward a soundproof door at the far end of the basement. "He's inside. Over the last thirteen days, the mental reconstruction you performed on him during your 5:00 PM hypnotic sessions has reached its final stage. Right now, he firmly believes that he is the brilliant psychologist, and that you are the dangerous criminal who destroyed his life."

Chapter 5: Awakening and Finale

Lucas walked slowly toward the soundproof door, peering through the one-way observation glass into the room.

Inside, the man in the gray trench coat—Morgan—was curled up in a ball on the floor, his eyes bloodshot, muttering frantically to himself: "I killed her... No, I am the doctor... No, I'm a monster... I am Morgan..."

Morgan’s psychological framework had completely shattered under thirteen days of silent, relentless mental erosion. He was no longer the untouchable, arrogant scion who had cheated the law; he was a broken man trapped inside a labyrinth of his own imagined guilt and constructed personalities.

Lucas pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Hearing the latch turn, Morgan jerked his head up. The moment his eyes locked onto Lucas, raw, primal terror gripped him—as if he were looking at a demon crawled straight up from the underworld.

"Dr... Dr. Vance? No, who are you? Who am I?!" Morgan clutched his head, screaming in agony.

Lucas walked up to him, towering over him. There was no exhilaration of revenge in his eyes, only a profound, freezing release. He bent down, leaning close to Morgan's ear, and whispered the awakening trigger word that had remained hidden for thirteen days:

"Morgan. When the snow melts, the thirteenth vanishing day comes to an end."

The instant those words registered, Morgan shuddered violently. His pupils dilated to the maximum before he collapsed heavily onto the floor, twitching as he slipped deep into unconsciousness.

Half an hour later, police cruisers and an emergency psychiatric transport arrived at the scene.

Morgan was taken into custody on severe charges of psychological manipulation, combined with a stark, compulsive urge to confess his past crimes. In his lucid testimony afterward, he unloaded every single detail of how he had committed the hit-and-run five years ago and covered up the evidence—all of it dug directly out of his subconscious by Lucas over the past thirteen days, solidified into ironclad truth.

Justice may sometimes arrive late, but Lucas had carved out his own path to ensure evil had nowhere left to hide.

Sunlight poured back into the clinic's windows.

Sitting at his familiar mahogany desk, Lucas dragged the folder labeled "013" into the recycle bin and permanently emptied it.

He pulled open his desk drawer, where a photograph of his late sister Rachel rested. In the picture, the young girl was smiling brightly.

Lucas gently brushed his fingers across the photograph before tucking it carefully against his chest. He stood up, walked over to the mirror, straightened his tie, and looked at the reflection looking back at him—calm, composed, and entirely free of shadows.

"Dr. Vance, your next appointment is here," Sarah called out with a crisp knock on the door.

"Right. Please send him in," Lucas replied with a faint smile.

Life had returned to its normal rhythm. The thirteen-day nightmare and its calculated retribution had finally drawn to a close. But only Lucas knew that deep within the innermost corner of his heart, he had left a door unlocked—standing ready, should justice ever require it, to slip back into the shadows as the hunter.