We ducked into an abandoned building three blocks from the Mnemosyne collapse zone — a small, forgotten memory clinic with shattered signage and a flickering "OPEN" light that hadn't meant anything in years.
The city outside was chaos.
Sirens.
Screams.
Memory bleed shimmering in the air like heatwaves.
The whirr of drones scanning for survivors.
Inside the clinic, it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Dust covered the counters.
Old brochures curled on the floor, promising "Memory Rejuvenation Therapy: Rewrite Your Best Days."
Lira kicked debris aside and barred the door.
"We stay here until dawn," she said quietly. "It's the only time Mnemosyne recalibrates its sensors. We'll be harder to track."
I sank onto a sagging couch in the waiting room.
My body felt hollow.
My heart even more so.
Ari's last spark seemed burned into the darkness behind my eyes.
Her whisper still echoed:
Run.
Lira crouched beside me, checking her disruptor.
"Elias… talk to me. What did you see back there? Who was that woman?"
I stared at the cracked clinic tiles.
"…My mother."
She froze.
"What?"
"She died when I was young," I murmured. "But in that memory… she wasn't dying. She was talking to Mnemosyne. She was working with them. And she said they erased something to protect me."
Lira sank onto the opposite chair.
"You think they erased her from YOUR mind?"
"No," I whispered.
Her eyes widened.
"They erased someone ELSE?"
Before I could answer, exhaustion dragged me under like a rip current.
I fell asleep sitting upright—
—and the world bled.
The dream was wrong from the beginning.
Dreams usually fuzz at the edges.
This one was sharp.
Cold.
Too real to be imagined.
I stood in a house I recognized before I remembered it —
a small two-floor home with yellow curtains
and a hallway lined with photos that had no faces.
I knew this place.
The place from my lost childhood.
The place I hadn't remembered in twenty years.
A voice floated from the kitchen.
Warm.
Tired.
Melancholy.
"Elias? Come help me set the table."
My mother.
Younger than the last time I'd seen her.
Smiling without knowing the years of grief ahead.
My breath shook.
"Mom…?"
She didn't turn.
"Don't dawdle, sweet boy."
Something tugged at my pant leg.
I looked down.
A girl—
A little girl
with dark hair
and bright eyes
holding my hand
like she'd done it a thousand times.
Her voice was soft, familiar in a way that stabbed my heart.
"Come on, Eli. Mommy's waiting."
My lungs locked.
"Who… who are you?"
She laughed — light, effortless, the laugh of someone who trusted me completely.
"I'm your sister, silly."
The air shattered.
A crack tore through the wallpaper — long, jagged, humming with static.
The child froze mid-smile.
My mother's voice distorted.
The house groaned like it was in pain.
"No," I whispered. "No, I don't have a—"
The hallway lights flickered.
A shadow stepped into the house.
Tall.
Tilted head.
Arms too long.
Feet making no sound.
And wearing the memory like a costume.
The little girl whispered behind me:
"…Elias?"
The shadow leaned its head against the doorframe.
The house bent inward around it.
Pieces of the dream fell away like burning paper.
Then it spoke in my mother's voice—
but deeper.
Wrong.
"You weren't supposed to remember her."
My breath died in my throat.
"My… my sister?"
The shadow stepped forward.
The walls buckled.
My mother vanished first — pulled into nothing like a string yanked from cloth.
The little girl's hand tightened—
terrified—
and she whispered:
"Don't forget me."
Then the shadow grabbed her by the arm—
And everything tore open.
I screamed.
I woke with a violent jolt.
My lungs clawed for air.
The clinic lights flickered as memory bleed surged through the district outside.
Lira was shaking me by the shoulders.
"Elias! Elias — what happened?!"
I pressed trembling hands to my face.
"They erased her."
"Erased WHO?"
I looked up at her—
eyes stinging, throat raw.
"My sister."
Lira's jaw fell open.
"Mnemosyne erased… a family member?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"That's illegal. That's not memory sanitation — that's identity destruction. Elias, if they erased a sibling—"
A loud crack rang through the clinic.
Lira jumped to her feet.
"What the hell was that?!"
A golden particle drifted from the ceiling.
Then another.
Then a small swirl.
Like dust.
But glowing.
My breath froze.
Ari.
Her last spark.
It drifted down slowly, hovering in front of my face.
Then it pulsed once.
A soft chime.
And a message unfolded in front of me —
written in faint golden lines of light.
I found something.
I didn't want you to see it alone.
Forgive me.
My heart fractured all over again.
Lira covered her mouth.
"…She left you a final echo."
Before I could touch it, the golden spark jerked violently—
as if yanked by an unseen force.
The temperature in the room dropped.
And from the far corner—
a shadow straightened.
It had followed me.
Into my dream.
Into my childhood.
Now into reality.
The shadow whispered:
"We're not done, Elias."
Ari's spark dimmed.
Lira raised the disruptor, trembling.
"Back away," she warned. "Step away from him or I swear—"
The shadow laughed.
A low, layered sound like voices crying underwater.
"This won't stop until he remembers."
The golden spark flickered dangerously.
Ari's last message —
the final thing she ever left me —
was being smothered.
"No," I whispered, stepping forward.
"NO!"
But the shadow reached out—
And the spark went dark.
Lira fired.
The clinic window exploded.
The shadow dissolved into dust—
not gone,
just changing shape,
retreating into a different corner of the world.
I fell to my knees where Ari's spark had been.
Hands shaking.
Lira crouched beside me, voice soft.
"Elias… we'll get it back. Whatever it took from you. We'll get her last message back."
I stared at the floor.
The dust was fading.
Both kinds.
"I'm losing everyone," I whispered.
"No," Lira said.
Her hand touched mine.
"You're not losing me."
Outside, the city screamed under the weight of collapsing memories.
Inside the clinic, I realized the truth:
Ari's message wasn't a farewell.
It was a warning.
My sister wasn't just erased.
She was connected to the Swarm.
Connected to the shadow.
Connected to me.
And they wanted me back.