I still remember the day my sister disappeared.
Not because she walked away. Not because she died.
But because the world decided she had never existed.
---
It started like any other morning.
The rain had been falling all night, and by dawn the whole house smelled of damp wood and cold stone. I remember groaning as I pushed myself out of bed, rubbing my eyes. The candle beside me had burned down to nothing, staining the desk with wax. My books, half read, half written, were scattered across the floor where I'd kicked them in my sleep.
I muttered to myself, promising for the hundredth time to clean my room, and pulled on my robe. My first thought wasn't about breakfast or the weather. It was about Lyra.
She hated rainy days.
"Too quiet," she always complained. "Like the world holds its breath."
Most mornings, she'd already be awake before me, humming off-key while flipping through whatever book she'd stolen from my shelves. She never asked permission. She said the act of stealing made the story sweeter.
So, half-awake, I walked to her room, ready to scold her for stealing my notes again.
The door creaked open.
Her bed was neatly made. The curtains were tied back. The little glass pendant she always kept on the windowsill, catching the morning light, was gone.
I froze in the doorway.
Lyra wasn't neat. She left books open, blankets crumpled, and half-finished sketches scattered across her desk. That room wasn't hers. It looked staged, sterile. Empty.
"Lyra?" My voice cracked a little.
Silence.
I stepped inside. The smell was wrong. Her room always carried the faint scent of ink and pressed flowers. Now it was just dust and rain. I searched the desk, the wardrobe, even the floorboards. Nothing. No books, no sketches, no pendant. No trace that she had ever lived there.
Panic scratched at the back of my throat. I ran back to my room, snatched up my journal, and flipped it open. I'd written her name dozens of times, notes about her, little conversations, even arguments I wanted to remember.
But the pages were blank.
Not blank exactly. The ink was still there, but smeared, distorted. Words broken into nonsense strokes, as if someone had dragged a wet cloth across them. Where her name should have been, Lyra Duskveil, there was only a black stain.
"No…" My hands shook so violently I almost dropped the book.
I searched another. And another. The same. All references to her were gone, blurred into meaninglessness. I grabbed a quill, dipped it in ink, and tried to write her name.
The letters twisted as soon as the nib touched paper, collapsing into gibberish.
I stumbled back from the desk, breathing hard, my chest tight as if the air itself had turned against me.
This had to be a dream. A nightmare brought on by too much study, too many late nights, too much wine. Any moment now, I'd wake up and hear Lyra humming down the hall.
But I didn't wake.
I ran through the house calling her name. The maids stopped their work and stared at me as though I'd grown two heads. When I shouted at them, demanded to know where Lyra was, they looked at me with pity, not understanding.
One even said, "Sir, you don't have a sister."
That was when the fear settled into my bones.
I stumbled into the street, rain plastering my hair to my face. "Lyra!" I screamed, ignoring the strange looks from the vendors, the guards, the neighbors. "Lyra Duskveil! Where is she?"
Nobody answered. Some shook their heads. Others frowned. A few whispered as I passed, clearly questioning my sanity.
I ran until I found Jorin, my oldest friend. If anyone would understand, it would be him.
He was hauling sacks of grain from his father's cart, his broad frame steady even in the downpour. I grabbed his arm so hard he dropped the sack.
"Jorin! Tell me you remember her. Tell me you remember Lyra!"
He blinked, frowning. "Who?"
"My sister!" My voice cracked, raw with desperation. "Lyra Duskveil! She used to climb the sycamore tree with us. She has, she had, a scar on her wrist, remember? From when she fell. You laughed until I punched you in the nose!"
Jorin only shook his head slowly, rain dripping from his hair into his eyes.
"Kaelen," he said, carefully, "you've never had a sister."
My stomach dropped. The world tilted. For a moment, I thought I might vomit right there in the street.
I shoved him away and ran, not caring where my feet carried me.
By the time I stumbled back home, soaked and shivering, the sun had set. The house was quiet. Too quiet. I slammed the door behind me, pressed my back to it, and slid to the floor.
I still remembered.
The way she hummed while reading.
The scar on her wrist.
The pendant she wore like a charm against nightmares.
Her laughter when she teased me.
Her voice when she called me "brother" in that sing-song tone.
I remembered everything. Which meant something was wrong with the world.
---
That night, I sat in my study with my ruined journals spread across the desk. The candle burned low, shadows dancing across the walls. I couldn't stop trembling. I kept whispering her name under my breath, terrified that if I didn't, I would forget too.
"Lyra. Lyra. Lyra."
The shadows shifted.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the candlelight. But then the dark in the corner of the room began to ripple, as though it were liquid. Letters crawled across the wall, twisting into shapes, then unraveling again.
I held my breath.
From the shifting blackness, a figure stepped forward. Human-shaped, but not entirely human. His face was blurred, as if smeared by an unseen hand. His eyes were pools of black ink, spilling letters that never settled long enough to read.
My skin went cold. My mouth went dry. "What… what are you?"
The figure didn't answer. He only raised one finger to his lips. A silent command.
I should have screamed. I should have run. But something in me froze. Some part of me understood him, though he hadn't spoken a word.
Everything erased still exists.
The thought pressed into my mind as if it had always been there, waiting for me to realize.
And someone had to bear it.
I clenched my fists until blood slicked my palms. The room was spinning, but one truth held me upright.
If the world had chosen to forget Lyra, then I would not.
If she had been stolen from existence, then I would drag her back.
If reality itself had betrayed her, then I would betray reality.
That was the night Kaelen the scholar died.
And the Archivist was born.