Even in darkness, the city is a patchwork of borrowed memories. Neon signs flicker along silent avenues, advertisements for lives that can be accessed—for a price. Tonight, rain filters through the haze, turning glass and steel into blurred reflections of people who no longer recognize the faces in their own minds.
Mira stands in the shadow of the old viaduct, fingers absently tracing the ridges of a memory coin. Each line is familiar—a topography of loss and longing, etched by a hand she almost remembers. Her mind swims with echoes: laughter that might have been hers, a glimpse of warm hazel eyes, a promise whispered and stolen away in another timeline.
Rumors whisper of a fragment infecting the city's memory networks, spreading like wildfire. It's just a trace, a glitch, or a hoax—until Mira feels it unspooling inside her head, vivid and uninvited. In this vision, she stands on a rooftop beneath a sky she doesn't know, watching stars blink out, one by one, as if reality itself is being rewritten.
The ache in her chest is sharper tonight. Behind her, footsteps approach—the familiar cadence of the woman she loves. Mira clutches the coin, unsure what is real, and wonders for the thousandth time: If she rewrites the past, will she lose herself, or finally remember who she truly is?
Outside, the city waits. Stories shift in the shadows. And somewhere, the memory that could remake everything is beginning to stir.