There was a rhythm in forgetting… a subtle cadence that filled the void between heartbeats. Before thoughts, before language, there was silence. And in that silence… she awoke.
No name, no memory, no anchor.
Her eyes opened to a sky she did not recognize, painted in shades too pale to feel real—grayish lilac, like a bruise on the heavens. The world around her was hushed, as if even the wind held its breath.
She was lying on grass that shimmered faintly, dew clinging to each blade like it feared being forgotten. The scent of earth, sharp and damp, filled her nose. Birds didn't sing. Time didn't move. Everything waited.
She sat up slowly. Her limbs obeyed her, but without familiarity—like a puppeteer testing new strings. Pain did not greet her. Neither did comfort. Her body was whole, untouched… but her soul felt amputated.
She looked at her hands. Slender. Pale. Trembling slightly.
Who… am I?
The thought echoed without reply.
Her gaze shifted across the field. It stretched endlessly in all directions, bordered by a distant mist that blurred the horizon. There were no landmarks. No roads. No signs of life.
Only her.
A single girl, born into a world already forgetting her.
She tried to stand. Her legs wobbled but held. She breathed in and out—shaky, but real. Step by step, she moved forward, unsure why, only knowing she couldn't stay still.
The silence began to hum. Faint, like a memory of music. Not in her ears, but in her chest.
A pull.
Like something calling.
Like something… waiting.
She followed it.
The mist grew thicker the further she walked. It clung to her skin like whispers. Shapes danced just beyond the veil—shadows with no source, movements without sound. She didn't flinch. She couldn't. Fear required imagination, and hers was still missing.
Ahead, a tree emerged. Ancient and crooked, its bark blackened and twisted like scar tissue. It stood alone, as if the world had grown around it and then forgotten to include anything else.
At its base, a stone.
She knelt.
No name was carved. No dates. Only a symbol: a circle, broken through the center with a single, vertical line.
She reached out.
The moment her fingers touched it—
A voice.
No sound. Just… presence.
Like a breath behind her ear.
"Your name was never written."
She froze.
The stone was warm now. Her fingers trembled. Her breath caught in her throat.
"But your story was always meant to be read."
She turned sharply. No one was there.
But something inside her cracked open. Not a memory, but a sensation—familiarity without form. Like remembering the smell of rain without knowing when you last saw a storm.
The world around her shifted subtly. The mist recoiled. The wind sighed.
Something had changed.
She was still nameless.
Still forgotten.
But she was no longer alone.
The girl wandered.
Days—maybe weeks—passed in silence. There was no sun to mark time, only the gradual deepening of the sky, like it too was learning how to exist.
She found ruins, scattered like broken sentences across a forgotten page. Half-walls, shattered glass, rusted metal. Echoes of a world that once spoke, now mute.
Sometimes, she heard laughter. Faint. Childlike. Not cruel, but not kind either. It would vanish when she tried to find its source.
One night—if night it was—she found a mirror.
Standing tall in the middle of a clearing. Unscratched. Untouched.
She approached.
Her reflection stared back.
A girl with snow-pale hair. Eyes too gray to hold light. Skin too flawless to feel alive.
She didn't recognize herself.
She didn't blink.
Her reflection raised a hand—not in sync with her.
Not a mirror.
A window.
Her double smiled faintly.
"They tried to erase you."
The glass cracked.
"But you can't erase what was never written."
Shards fell inward.
A scream rose—not hers, not her twin's, but from beneath the earth.
The field trembled.
And in the distance, something woke.
The ground trembled beneath her feet, a low rumble that whispered of things long buried—secrets clawing to break free. The mist thickened, swirling with sudden urgency, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Her heartbeat quickened, though she still did not know why she was afraid. Not of what was in front of her, but of what might come next.
From the distance, a faint glow appeared—pale and flickering, like a candle struggling against the wind. She took a step toward it, drawn by a force beyond reason or memory.
As she moved closer, the glow revealed itself: a circle of ancient stones, standing tall like sentinels guarding a forgotten truth. Each stone was carved with symbols she didn't understand, but somehow, their meaning sank deep into her bones.
She stepped inside the circle. The air changed—charged, electric. The silence shattered by a sudden chorus of whispers, voices not spoken but felt, echoing in her mind.
"Remember..."
"Find the name..."
"Before the last page turns…"
Her knees buckled. The words were not hers, yet they rang with undeniable clarity.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in the center of the circle—shimmering, almost translucent. A woman, regal and distant, her eyes glowing like stars. She opened her mouth, but no words came. Instead, an image flooded the girl's mind: flashes of faces, places, memories she never lived yet somehow owned.
She saw herself—many versions of herself—walking different paths, wearing different names, loved and forgotten in cycles endless as the night.
Then the vision shattered like glass, leaving only the woman's final message imprinted on her soul:
"You are not forgotten. You are the story the world refuses to write... but cannot erase."
The figure dissolved. The stones dimmed. The mist began to recede, revealing a path—clear and inviting, stretching toward a horizon where something waited. Something that might hold the key to her existence.
With trembling resolve, she rose and stepped forward, ready to chase the fragments of a story that was hers alone to reclaim.