Mira watched her classmates laugh in the courtyard, the sunlight catching in their hair, their voices full of something she could no longer touch.
She sat on the edge of the fountain, staring at the rippling surface of the water. Somewhere beneath it, her own reflection stared back—but it didn't feel like hers anymore. The girl in the water looked… flatter. As if part of her had already been written over.
She opened the book again, the one she'd found in the library, and skimmed through the sentences that had changed overnight.
They were different now.
Where once there had been lines like *"She is the only one who remembers,"* now it read:
*"She is starting to forget."*
Mira's grip tightened. "No. I'm not."
But even as she said it, something inside her twisted. Because she *had* started forgetting things.
Tiny things.
The color of her old backpack. The name of the street she used to live on. The way her voice used to sound when she was younger.
And most of all, she was forgetting the details of Rion's face.
She remembered his voice, his warmth, the weight of his presence—but his eyes?
Were they green? Or dark brown?
His smile—did it tilt left or right?
She stood abruptly, heart pounding. Around her, the courtyard continued like nothing had changed. A group of students walked past, brushing her shoulder, and none of them seemed to see her.
Like she was fading too.
No. No. No.
She shoved the book into her bag and walked fast toward the school building, through the back hallway that no one used anymore. Her footsteps echoed behind her, lonely and uncertain.
The hallway was cold, lined with old lockers and flickering lights. And halfway through it, she heard it again.
A voice.
Not from her head. Not from the book. But from behind her.
*"You're not supposed to be here."*
Mira turned sharply.
A girl stood at the other end of the hallway, half-shrouded in shadow. Her uniform was the same as Mira's, but it looked… wrong. Outdated, faded at the edges like an old photograph.
The girl didn't move. Her face was pale, her expression empty.
Mira took a step back. "Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head.
*"You weren't written to go this far."*
Mira's mouth went dry. She opened her backpack slowly, fingers brushing the edge of the book.
The girl took a step closer. The hallway lights blinked—once, twice—and when they steadied, the girl was gone.
The air around Mira turned heavy. She dropped to her knees, flipping the book open in a panic.
The page was blank.
Then one sentence wrote itself across the middle in shaking, uneven ink:
*"She's not the only one who remembers anymore."*
Mira backed away from the book like it had spoken aloud.
She wanted to scream, to run, to throw the thing across the floor and forget it existed—but she couldn't. Because somewhere in all this, there was still Rion. And if someone else remembered too… maybe she wasn't alone.
Later that day, in class, she couldn't stop glancing around the room. Searching faces. Watching for someone else who might pause, hesitate, glitch.
That's when she saw him.
A boy in the third row. She didn't know his name. She was sure she'd never seen him before.
But he was staring directly at her.
Not like everyone else. Not vacant, not programmed.
He looked afraid. Like her.
Their eyes met for a second too long.
Then he looked away, quickly, scribbling something in his notebook.
Mira waited until the bell rang, heart racing, and approached him as students filtered out.
"Hey," she said.
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. "Do you remember someone named Rion?"
His shoulders tensed.
Then, without a word, he tore a page from his notebook, folded it once, and pressed it into her hand as he walked past.
Mira unfolded it slowly.
It said:
*"Meet me at the rooftop after school. Come alone."*