He was dead. Ninety percent certainty. Or maybe eighty-nine.

Kiran swayed on bare feet, trees and waterlilies—a holographic water garden—rippling around his pajama-clad body. When he'd been alive, he'd been good at math, had calculated the gravity of warp rifts to sling ships to the far reaches of space. He'd been a pilot, a navigator, an explorer.

One murdered by aliens.

Or had that been someone else? He frowned, dark hair tangling on the courtyard's manufactured breeze. He'd thought he was a garden gnome yesterday, but that'd been Ray's dream. Ray, another inmate. No, patient. The whitecoats called them 'patients.'

Why did that word feel wrong in his mouth?

Uncertainty swirled, melting the memory of Ray's pointed red hat into something darker: blood. Terminal brain bleed. Kiran closed his eyes, gauging that truth. Ninety-seven percent. Best one could expect after extraterrestrials hijacked a warp jump, killing all crew. Another alien had had to jury-rig his neurons to take over his corpse. Confusion was expected.

Or was it the meds.

The world took a hazy rotation.

The pills. He looked to simulated sky. Had he seen a movie about blue pills? Seventy percent certainty. Why did he feel like he should be taking red ones?

He rolled his head to the side. His 'spirit'—the piece of him death had released—moved beyond holographic trees to touch walls of dark reinforced glass. Bio-electricity hummed under his ghost's fingers. Life, people, their thoughts... Secrets.

His gaze rolled back to the pond, to a goldfish with bulging, unblinking eyes.

They were watching. Eyes. Dozens of them. He was the fish in the bowl.

Hairs lifted at his nape, an emotion rippling out of the trees to his left. Fear. Sixty percent certainty.

He scratched at it, wanting rid of it, but it only intensified—manifested into matter.

One of the people in white.

Time for his meds.

Kiran turned, expecting a faceless blur, but found eyes of forget-me-not blue.

His were that color. Was he looking at himself? This face, with its wide mouth and pretty arched brows, was familiar enough to be his own. But it was a woman's, and her insides felt... Not dead. Life and secrets whispered beneath her skin. She knew death, but from the other side. He'd died to come to this garden. She'd killed to get there.

"Berty." The name came to his lips, tasting of gumdrops. Butterflies took flight in his chest. Happiness—certainty ninety percent. Giggly piggybacks. He'd carried this woman when she was smaller, before blood stained her mind.

She took his hand, her touch warm, strong. She'd always been strong, a fighter, a rebel. Her hair was black, but he remembered it streaked with color. Her nose, now straight and flawless, had once glittered with piercings. Vivid, defiant Liberty—his sister's name, her battle cry. Where he capitulated to their parents' demands, kept the peace, she'd resisted—gone to war.

"You should be partying with mobsters." Kiran frowned at her white scrubs, a far cry from her usual sparkles. Berty was an "intergalactic party slut," a freeloader to the rich, powerful, and corrupt. Mother said so, often.

But Mother couldn't see Berty's secrets: knives in the dark; bullets delivered with cold precision.

"I'm partying with you today." Berty filled his hand with another secret. Pills.

Kiran stared. Not blue capsules. Grey. Forty percent certain.

He looked to his sister, knowing she saw them better, their truth. "Are these the red ones?" She'd seen the same movie: blue for dreams; red for what lay beyond.

"Yes, they're the red ones. You need to take them now."

That prickle at his nape again. "You're afraid."

"Take the pills, Kir. We'll both feel better once you do."

He did as asked. Didn't he always? But this was different from going to the Space Academy, committing to lightyears of travel away from those he loved because his father wanted intergalactic prestige. Berty never hurt him; never asked him to be something he wasn't.

"I'm dead." He handed over his secret, knowing she'd love him regardless. "I died. Aliens grabbed my ship out of warp and broke my brain."

"I heard, but tell me about it later, okay? Keep moving."

They were moving? Flickering light—a thousand make-believe leaves. He was off the path—running. Eighty percent certainty. A holo sculpture flashed by, an hourglass that never ran out of sand, but today it felt like it might. The other secret he'd kept from the whitecoats burst out: "I think there was an alien inside me. This is not my brain."

"Don't sweat it, Kir." A squeeze on his arm. "I've read your patient files. You got an upgrade."

"I'm might be a zombie." Kiran sensed the watchers moving—fast, frantic. "Is that why they're chasing us?"

"No." Berty pulled him to a door; drew a laser cutter from her scrubs. "I might have broken a couple of visitation rules."

Kiran watched in fascination as she sliced through the lock. "I wish I'd broken more rules when I was alive."

"Never too late, big bro. Just follow my le—"

Armed guards burst in.

Kiran stared as the truth of his baby sister rose to her skin under swinging stun batons. Bodies hit walls, slammed to the floor—a ballet of violence. His lips curved, the world swaying then settling. The universe was full of lies and secrets, but the haze was clearing. Berty was no party girl, whatever Mother said.

And he wasn't dead.

He was something else.

He reached out, plucked at the electrical strings humming around him. The guards attacking his sister dropped to the ground, their consciousnesses switched to 'off.'

He met his sister's wild blue gaze, touched her bloodied lip. "You're a government agent gone rogue." For him. One hundred percent certainty. "And I'm an escaped mental patient with alien neurons." The sigh that heaved out of him was as resigned as it was despondent. "Dad's going to be so pissed."

Acknowledgements, Copyright, and Challenge Details

This short story was written for the 2021 Ultimate Sci-Fi SmackDown challenge: round 1. Challenge details:  Write a science fiction story with a maximum of 1000 words that features a garden gnome, a goldfish, and an hourglass.