Chapter 2: Fractured Memories
883 Words
“Ada? You should rest."
The nurse's whisper faded as lights dimmed. Machines beeped on. Outside, rain whispered down the glass like quiet grief.
Inside the coma, Sarah floated—somewhere between memory and oblivion.
*You're not real,* she thought.
But the past ignored her protests.
A soft piano melody echoed, and suddenly she was ten again, perched on the polished bench of the grand Steinway in the music room. Her tiny fingers stumbled through Beethoven as Helena clapped from a velvet chair.
“That's my prodigy," her mother beamed. “Daddy will love it."
A chuckle. Then—
“Don't mess up the last note again," Raymond's cool voice drifted from the doorway.
Sarah turned. “Why do you always watch but never clap?"
He shrugged, expression unreadable. “I don't pretend things are perfect when they're not."
She had hated him then. Or thought she did.
The memory warped.
Now she was sixteen, spinning in front of the mirror in a blush-pink gown.
“Is Paris too much?" she had asked.
“No such thing," Helena said, smiling over a credit card receipt.
Father had waved from the stairwell. “Anything for our girl."
The dress shimmered. The champagne flowed. The world bowed.
But even then, a shadow hovered—Raymond again, watching from the edge of every party, drink in hand, eyes always… elsewhere.
Then came Michael.
“Hey, birthday girl." He'd shown up late, hair wind-tousled, holding a bouquet of wildflowers.
“Roses are too obvious," he had said with that crooked grin.
And just like that, Sarah had fallen.
She floated now through that memory—ice cream on their noses, long walks through vineyards, whispered wedding plans under fairy lights.
“I'll always choose you," he had promised.
Sarah exhaled in the darkness. *Liar.*
The images twisted again.
Raymond's voice, older now. “There's someone I want you to meet."
The dinner.
*Lucy.*
Sarah saw her again—damp hair curling around a pale face, eyes wide with awe. She was dressed plainly, but she had the Thomas jawline. The Thomas dimple.
She even smiled like Helena.
Sarah had tried to be gracious.
“More tea?" she'd offered, hand trembling as droplets hit the linen.
Michael had stared too long.
Raymond had said nothing.
Father's pen had rolled off the table.
And Helena… her eyes had gone distant.
Sarah remembered gripping the silverware so tightly her knuckles whitened.
That was the beginning of the end.
Back in the present, Sarah's breath shuddered through the ventilator.
Outside the room, Ada adjusted the blanket around her and whispered, “They didn't know what they had."
Sarah's inner voice cracked. *Neither did I.*
The memories wouldn't stop.
Now she was at the company gala, arm in arm with Michael. Her heels clicked against marble as flashbulbs flared.
Raymond stood at the edge, beside Lucy, whispering to investors.
“She's brilliant," he said. “Self-made."
They drank in her words, her story. The girl who had nothing, who worked night shifts to earn a place at Thomas Holdings.
The press loved her.
The staff adored her.
Helena wept at the speech.
Sarah clapped until her hands stung.
Then she'd looked in the mirror again, alone in the powder room.
For the first time, the reflection looked unfamiliar.
“Do I belong here?" she had whispered to herself.
The memory spun again, this time to the family study.
Thomas stood behind the desk. Raymond beside him.
“Just a simple cheek swab, honey," her father had said.
“Why?"
“Routine health screening."
She'd complied.
Seventy-two hours later, everything shattered.
Sarah saw herself reading the DNA results, her name printed beside percentages that meant *nothing*—and *everything*.
She had collapsed on the hallway floor, papers fluttering like dying birds.
Raymond had watched, silent.
Helena's scream rang again: “Lucy is ours!"
Thomas had pulled Lucy into a father's embrace.
And Sarah?
No one looked for her.
No one asked if she was okay.
A fake.
A ghost.
A misprint.
Her memories slowed now, like worn-out film reels.
Sarah stood in the garden, watching roses drip in a morning drizzle.
Michael approached quietly. “It doesn't matter. You're still you."
“But I'm not their daughter."
“You're my future," he had said, brushing wet hair from her cheek.
And for a moment, she had believed.
Until later, at another event, she caught him watching Lucy.
Too long. Too fond.
Her heart had cracked.
Back in the coma, Sarah tried to scream.
*He was mine. My dream.*
But no sound came.
In her mind, she walked alone through the Thomas estate.
Each corridor echoed.
Each room felt colder.
Raymond's voice returned. “You were never supposed to be here."
*Then why did you let me stay?*
She reached the ballroom in her memory.
Crystal chandeliers above. Silver cutlery below.
Her place setting was gone.
Lucy sat at the center now.
Michael beside her.
Helena beamed.
Thomas raised a toast.
Raymond remained in the shadows.
Sarah turned to leave—heels echoing like gunshots—but the walls dissolved.
Back in the ICU, a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
Just one.
Ada gasped. “Doctor!"
But inside, Sarah was still falling.
Through time. Through truth.
And deeper into the dark.
- Writer
