Iria Kade woke to pain.
A dull, steady ache pulsed under the skin of her right wrist, as if something inside had been twisted and left a little off. She lay still for a moment, eyes closed, taking stock of her body the way she always did when something felt wrong. Her neck was stiff. Her mouth was dry. There was a faint metallic taste, like old pennies, at the back of her tongue.
And then she opened her eyes.
Morning light slipped through the narrow gap in her curtains, pale and harsh. Her alarm clock read **6:42 a.m.** It blinked once, then went dark, almost like it didn't want to be seen.
Iria frowned.
She never woke up this way. She was careful about sleep: same hour, same routine, the quiet discipline that made mornings predictable. Predictability meant safety. Predictability meant things stayed the same.
Her wrist throbbed again.
She lifted her arm and sucked in a breath.
A bruise circled her wrist, dark and uneven, the shape not right for an accident. It looked like fingers. Not clear enough to be proof—bruises almost never were—but clear enough to make her uneasy. She turned her wrist slowly. The pain flared, sharp and bright.
"I don't remember," she whispered.
The words sounded strange in her own mouth, like a foreign language poorly pronounced.
She sat up, her heart starting to race, and looked around the room. Everything seemed normal at first. Her bed was made just as she always did it, with tight corners, neat as a hospital. Her shoes were lined up under the small desk by the window.
Except they were filthy.
Mud covered the soles in thick, drying layers, with flakes already breaking off onto the hardwood floor. It wasn't the dusty grime from a sidewalk, but wet earth. Heavy with clay. The kind that stuck.
Iria stared at them.
She worked in archives—climate-controlled rooms. No windows. No dirt.
She stood up slowly and carefully. The floor felt cold under her bare feet. She walked over and crouched, touching the edge of one shoe with a finger. The mud was real. Dry enough to crumble. Real enough to leave a mark.
Her pulse hammered in her ears.
"Okay," she said aloud, grounding herself in the sound. "Okay."
She moved through the apartment in a careful, methodical way, just like when she found a box of files out of order or a digital record that didn't look right. Panic wouldn't help. Careful observation was what mattered.
The bathroom mirror showed her a face she knew: brown hair loose from its usual braid, a cheek creased from sleep, eyes too alert for someone who had just woken up. She noticed a faint smear of dirt at her temple she hadn't seen before, and a shallow cut at the base of her thumb, already scabbed.
She didn't remember that either.
In the kitchen, her phone lay face down on the counter. She flipped it over. The screen stayed black.
Dead.
At least that made sense. Sometimes she forgot to plug it in. But she didn't remember taking it off the charger.
She checked the wall outlet by habit. The charger hung there, empty.
Her stomach dropped.
Iria leaned against the counter and took slow breaths through her nose. Memory loss wasn't impossible. People forgot things all the time—because of stress, tiredness, or brief moments of sleep. She had worked late last night, hadn't she?
She closed her eyes and tried to recall the evening.
Dinner. A book. The soft hum of the refrigerator.
And then, nothing.
No sleep. No transition. Just absence.
Her gaze drifted to the calendar pinned beside the fridge. She stepped closer, heart pounding, and stared at the date.
A small, neat circle surrounded it in red ink.
**Full Moon.**
The pen stroke was hers. She recognized it right away: firm, deliberate, with no wasted motion.
She did not remember drawing it.
A chill crept up her spine.
Iria pressed her bruised wrist gently against the counter, grounding herself in the feeling. Pain meant she was here. Pain meant she was present.
"There's an explanation," she said, though she didn't really believe it. "There's always an explanation."
She turned toward the living room—and froze.
Her laptop sat open on the coffee table.
The screen glowed softly, showing a blank document. The cursor blinked at the top of the page, waiting.
Above it, a single line of text had been typed.
**If you're reading this, you don't remember last night.**
Iria's breath caught in her throat.
She stepped forward, then again, moving slowly and carefully, as if she might scare something away. Her wrist throbbed in time with the blinking cursor.
She reached the table and stared at the words, her reflection faintly visible in the darkened screen.
Her hands were steady when she touched the trackpad.
Who had written this?
The answer rose unbidden, unwelcome.
*You did.*
The realization felt heavy.
Whatever happened under the full moon, whatever left bruises on her skin and mud on her shoes, one thing was clear:
She had known this would happen.
And she had not been able to stop it.