I woke with a start, my heart pounding as if I'd been pulled from a dream I couldn't remember. My heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The remnants of a dream, something urgent, something slipping through my fingers—dissipated before I could grasp it.Sunlight streamed through the curtains, painting golden stripes across my rumpled bedsheets. The air smelled of ghee and toasted bread, warm and familiar. Downstairs, my mother's voice floated up, soft but insistent:
"Are you up yet? Your food's getting cold."
"Coming," I called back, but my chest tightened, my fingers curling into the sheets.
Everything was normal. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, sparrows bickered outside the window, my school uniform hung neatly over the chair—starched and waiting. But the wrongness wasn't in the world around me. It was inside me. A hollow space, gaping and raw, where something precious should. have been.
What am I forgetting?
-
I dragged myself downstairs, each step heavier than the last. My mother stood by the stove, humming as she stirred a pot. She turned, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. "There you are. I was about to send a search party."
I forced a laugh, but it sounded brittle even to my own ears.
She was kind. She was cheerful. She was the most important person in my life. So why did it feel like I was standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for the ground to disappear beneath me?
At the breakfast table, I picked at my rice, the grains sticking to my fingers. My favorite dish, spiced potatoes and crispy parathas tasted like ash on my tongue.
"You're quiet today," my mother said, her brow furrowing. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah. Just… weird dreams, maybe." But I couldn't remember any.
She opened her mouth like she wanted to say more but she didn't say anything but sighing. "Eat up. You'll need your energy."
I nodded, chewing mechanically, the flavors dull and distant.
-
The world outside was the same as it had always been. The same chaotic symphony of honking cars and chattering neighbors. The same man sprinting down the footpath, dodging complaints with a sheepish grin. Kids laughed by the riverside, their shouts echoing over the water. The grocery store lady waved at me, her smile bright as always.
I walked past the usual turns, the usual faces, but my feet didn't stop at school. Something tugged at me—deeper than curiosity, sharper than fear. A whisper in my blood, pulling me toward the one place that ever felt like an answer.
I needed to go somewhere. Somewhere that made sense.
-
The abandoned factory loomed ahead, its broken windows staring down like hollow eyes. It had been shut down years ago officially due to "financial losses," but the truth was far darker.
I'd discovered that truth piece by piece, like peeling back layers of a nightmare.
The first time I came here, I'd been drawn by something I couldn't name—a pull in my chest, a whisper in my bones. I'd been scared then, my pulse racing as I stepped over cracked tiles and rusted pipes.
The second time, I'd been hurting. A boy at school had punched me, his laughter sharp in my ears. I'd run here, tears hot on my cheeks, and somehow, in the silence of this broken place, I'd found solace.
And then, I'd found the secrets.
Hidden beneath the factory's rotting floors were files,so many files,filled with photographs of children. Some missing limbs. Some with feathers sprouting from their skin. Others with too many teeth, too many eyes.
They experimented on them.
The realization had sent ice down my spine. This hadn't been just a milk factory. Beneath its innocent facade, they'd twisted flesh and bone, stitching together horrors in the dark.
But one folder was different. Thinner. More carefully handled. Most of the files had names, dates, cold clinical notes. But this one stood out "Lyria".
No last name. No dates. Just a single, smudged pencil sketch where someone had tried to erase her face. The edges were worn soft from how often I'd touched it.
Her name whispered through my mind like a ghost. "Who were you?"The other children had records, failed experiments, grotesque fusions of flesh and feather, limbs grafted where they shouldn't be. But Lyria's file was a void. And yet, her name burned in my chest.
Then a sound made me freeze.
Not the usual creaks and sighs of the dying building. This was...breathing. Too quick. Too close.
I whirled, the folder clutched to my chest
And saw nothing.
Just shadows. Just my imagination.
But my heart hammered against my ribs like it wanted out.
And yet, her name ached in my chest, like a wound I couldn't heal.
-
Today, the factory's pull was stronger than ever.
As I neared the crumbling gates, a sharp pain lanced through my heart. My breath hitched. For a second, I swore I heard a *voice*—faint, desperate—calling from somewhere deep inside.
Then I saw it.
A hawk, perched on the skeletal branch of the old banyan tree. Its feathers were the color of dried blood, its eyes gleaming like shards of amber. I'd never seen one so close before, yet my body recognized it. My pulse thundered, my skin prickling with something between fear and longing.
The hawk stared at me, unblinking.
And then
A flicker, A memory run through my head
Fire. Smoke so thick I couldn't breathe. Small, cold fingers gripping mine hard enough to bruise. A girl's voice, raw with terror: "Don't look back! Don't ever look—"
The image shattered as quickly as it came.
The memory hit like a punch to the throat. I doubled over, gasping. The world tilted violently
When I looked up, the hawk was gone.
The hawk spread its wings and took flight, vanishing into the sky. My head exploded with pain,a scream trapped inside my skull, tearing me apart from the inside. I stumbled, my knees hitting the dirt. The world tilted, darkness creeping in at the edges. It built like a scream, like something trapped and furious trying to get out. My vision swam. I tasted copper.
My vision tunneled. As the world faded, my fingers brushed against paper - rough, worn edges. The folder. Lyria's file. But I hadn't picked it up. Hadn't even touched it before collapsing.
Yet there it was, clutched in my hand like it had been there all along, her name bleeding into the dirt as the darkness swallowed me whole
Last night, I'd gone to bed an ordinary boy.
This morning, I'd woken with half a soul.
And now, as I fell into the void, I finally understood— The forgotten weren't lost.
They were erased.And I was next.
As my knees hit the ground, a hand brushed my shoulder cold, small, familiar.
But when I turned, no one was there.
Only the wind, howling like a girl's scream.