The days that followed Adam's decision to seek psychiatric help felt like an unending spiral. There was no escaping the echoes—they had fused with every waking and sleeping moment of his life. They haunted him in the stillness of his office and amid the cacophony of Cairo's streets. The once-inspiring city, rich in history and life, had become a labyrinth of sensory distortions. He saw the pyramids glowing in colors that didn't exist, heard ghostly choirs rising from the void, and smelled the salty scent of an ocean where only desert should be.
Adam could no longer distinguish reality from illusion. The echoes grew stronger, more detailed, as if they were trying to consume him completely. One afternoon, while walking through Al-Muizz Street, he suddenly found himself in a bustling medieval bazaar. People in ancient attire shouted over their wares in classical Arabic. The vision was so vivid he instinctively reached out to touch a swatch of fabric—only to find his hand pass through empty air. Another time, in his own apartment, he looked around and found himself in a completely different living room filled with unfamiliar furniture and advanced technology. A child ran past him, calling him "Dad." These emotional echoes were the most painful—they touched something deep inside him, tapping into unspoken fears and dormant desires.
His physical and mental state worsened rapidly. He grew gaunt and pale, his eyes sunken with relentless exhaustion. He avoided mirrors, for each time he looked into one, a stranger's face overlapped with his own—or he saw himself in other forms: wearing a spacesuit, or dressed as an architect in a futuristic metropolis. He stopped eating, subsisting on caffeine and the occasional bite. Insomnia became his only constant; every attempt to sleep was interrupted by waves of echoes that dragged him away from the threshold of unconsciousness.
At the university, Adam was a ghost. He barely made it to lectures, sitting quietly in the back rows, avoiding eye contact. Dr. Sara tried several times to speak with him, but he evaded her. Professor Ahmed, the department head, had sent him multiple concerned emails, warning of potential disciplinary action if his performance didn't improve. But none of it mattered to Adam anymore. The echoes had become his entire world—a world he couldn't escape.
In rare moments of clarity, he still tried to make sense of it all. He revisited theories of parallel universes, hoping to find a connection. Could the echoes be intrusions from other realities? Had the boundaries between worlds weakened somehow? But even to a theoretical physicist, these ideas felt dangerously unhinged. His rational mind refused to accept what his senses were screaming.
Despair crept into his soul. He felt trapped in a prison of perception, surrounded by visions no one else could see. The thought of losing his mind terrified him more than the echoes themselves. He feared becoming an empty shell—adrift in a sea of delusions. One night, alone in his dark apartment, surrounded by the relentless barrage of whispers and visions, he felt the overwhelming urge to give up. But somewhere deep inside, a fragile flicker of hope stopped him. That flicker had a name: Dr. Layla.
At 3:00 a.m., Adam called Dr. Layla's clinic. He didn't expect anyone to answer, but an automated voice listed the office hours and instructions for booking an appointment. He left a brief, broken message—his voice trembling, saturated with despair—begging for the earliest available session. He didn't know what he would say to her, or how to explain what he was experiencing. But one thing was certain: he couldn't go on like this. He had to place his trust in someone—someone who might not understand his world, but just might be able to pull him back from the edge of this unraveling nightmare.