Mind's Prison

Detective Ethan Cross had never been good at waking up. Every morning felt like a slow crawl from a place just beyond reach, as if he'd been in a dream the whole night—one he couldn't quite remember but felt lingering in the back of his mind.

This morning, the name Lena Maddox stood out clearly, like a sharp whisper breaking through the fog.

He blinked, trying to shake off the remnants of his sleep. But the name wouldn’t fade. It stayed with him, an uncomfortable weight in his chest. The same name he’d been investigating for weeks now.

He reached for his notepad beside the bed, scribbling it down before it could escape.

Ethan sat up, rubbing his face. The cases he worked were always consuming, but this one—Lena Maddox—felt different. There had been something… unsettling about it from the start. A woman missing with no sign of a crime scene, no witnesses who could pinpoint her last whereabouts, and no digital footprint.

A ghost, it seemed.

He pushed the thought away. There had to be answers, somewhere. And he wasn’t going to stop until he found them.

---

The investigation had been maddening.

He'd followed leads that turned cold before they even started, chased down witnesses who either couldn’t remember or swore they had never even met Lena. There was no missing persons report, nothing. Just whispers. The more Ethan pressed, the more the case slipped through his fingers, like sand in a clenched fist.

He walked into headquarters, feeling like he was walking on a tightrope—one slip, and he’d fall into madness.

Mark Holloway was at his desk when Ethan walked in. His partner barely looked up from his computer.

“You find something on Maddox?” Ethan asked, trying to keep the edge from his voice.

Holloway glanced up, then back down at his screen. “Maddox? Who’s that?”

Ethan froze, staring at him. “Lena Maddox. The missing girl. You and I have been working on her case for the last few weeks.”

Holloway’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Cross. There’s no case. There’s never been a Maddox case.”

Ethan felt the floor drop out from under him. The room began to close in, like the walls were pressing in from all sides. His partner’s face became a blur. “What do you mean there’s no case? I’ve got files—notes. The bar she was last seen at. I was there just yesterday!”

Holloway blinked, confused. “Yesterday? Cross, there’s nothing in the system. No missing person. No bar. What the hell are you talking about?”

Ethan stood there, too stunned to speak. The room around him felt unreal, as if he were suddenly living inside a fractured version of his own life. He reached for his coat, his fingers shaking.

He needed to leave. He needed to find Lena—someone who remembered her.

---

The drive was a blur. His mind churned over what Holloway had said—how could there be no case? How could he have worked for days on something that didn’t exist? He had seen the files. He had read the reports. He had met the people who knew Lena, the ones who had seen her last.

Except, now—nothing.

He found himself parked outside The Red Lantern, a dingy bar that seemed to always be just on the edge of his memory. Lena had been here. He remembered it clearly—the dim lighting, the smell of cheap whiskey. He could even recall her face, pale, eyes wide with something unreadable as she sat at the bar, nervously twisting a napkin between her fingers.

But when he stepped inside, everything felt wrong. The place was… different.

There was no bartender. No familiar faces. The bar was deserted, quiet, and the walls were covered in peeling paint. The dim lights hummed in a way that made the whole space feel like it was holding its breath.

He approached the bar. An old man sat on a stool near the end, nursing a drink. Ethan’s throat tightened.

“Have you ever heard of Lena Maddox?” he asked, his voice low.

The man squinted at him. “Lena Maddox? Don’t know anyone by that name, kid.”

Ethan pressed harder. “She was here not long ago—maybe a few weeks ago? She was sitting right here.” He pointed to the bar, but the man only shook his head.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The room felt suffocating. Ethan could feel the walls closing in around him.

The bartender wasn’t there. The regulars weren’t there. The woman he remembered—Lena—wasn’t there.

He backed out of the bar, panic rising in his chest.

---

Ethan didn’t sleep that night. He sat at his desk in his apartment, piecing together everything he knew—except nothing added up. The timelines didn’t match. The case notes he swore he had written weren’t there. The places he had been didn’t exist the way he remembered them.

Had he fabricated the entire case?

Or—

Had he been made to forget?

The thought sent a chill down his spine. If Lena Maddox had been real, if she had really disappeared, then someone had gone to great lengths to erase every trace of her.

And if they had done that—

Would they come for him next?

His gaze flickered to the door. The lock. The windows.

Had they already?

---

The next day, Ethan didn’t show up to work.

Holloway stopped by his apartment. The landlord let him in when there was no answer. Holloway didn’t find Ethan at his apartment.

The place was empty—too empty. No clothes in the closet. No food in the fridge. No signs of life. As if no one had lived there for months.

The only thing left behind was a notepad on the desk.

Lena Maddox.

Written over and over.

Holloway’s stomach turned. He grabbed his phone, dialing Ethan’s number. Straight to voicemail. He tried again. Nothing.

Then—his eyes landed on a manila folder sitting in the center of the desk. Frowning, he flipped it open.

A case file.

Ethan Cross—Missing Persons Report.

Filed five years ago.

Holloway’s breath stalled. He flipped through the pages, his hands cold. Detective Ethan Cross. Declared missing. Case unsolved.

He stumbled back, pulse hammering.

Ethan had been gone for years.

But he had just spoken to him yesterday.

His eyes darted back to the notepad, to the name scrawled across the pages. He turned one over—and his blood ran cold.

Because beneath Ethan’s frantic handwriting, in ink that had long since faded, there was another name.

Mark Holloway.

The room spun.

Ethan hadn’t been chasing Lena Maddox. He hadn’t been losing his mind.

He had been trying to wake up.

And now—

Holloway realized, with a creeping, ice-cold certainty—so was he.