ASHES OF YOU

The Forgotten Name

The silence stretched between them like a chasm.

Rin stood in the doorway of nothing, staring at the version of herself that wasn’t her — older, colder, the color drained from her skin and soul. The rainbow shimmer in her eyes? Gone. She looked… empty. Like she’d forgotten how to feel.

And maybe that was the point.

The older Rin tilted her head, expression unreadable. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Rin stepped closer, hesitant. “What is this place?”

“This?” The older version of her gave a small, humorless smile. “This is the room where you leave things behind. Names. Memories. People.”

A chill traced her spine.

Rin scanned the walls. Blank. No doors. No windows. Just a suffocating stillness.

She clenched her fists. “Where’s Rei?”

“You’re still asking the wrong questions,” the older Rin said.

“Then tell me the right ones!”

A flicker — just a flicker — of pain crossed her doppelgänger’s face. “Why do you think they erased your memories?”

Rin froze.

“What?”

“They didn’t take Rei,” she continued softly. “They took you. Your voice. Your fire. The girl who screamed at storms and laughed like firecrackers. You don’t even remember your real name anymore, do you?”

Rin staggered back.

Real name?

The older her stood slowly, and as she did, the room rippled — like her very presence disrupted the illusion.

“You were never supposed to come back here,” she said. “They made sure of it. They buried you in other people’s memories. In fake dreams. In a city that rewrites itself every night.”

Rin’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. “Why? What did I do?”

“You remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

The older her stepped closer, and suddenly her face wasn’t older anymore — it was identical. As if they’d become mirrors of each other.

“You remembered him,” she whispered.

And in that instant — everything cracked.

Images hit her like thunder.

Blood on marble.

A boy screaming her name under moonlight.

Chains.

Eyes — his eyes — turning black as he was dragged into the dark.

Her — on her knees — screaming a name she could no longer recall.

Then silence.

Then… forgetting.

“No,” Rin gasped. “No no no—”

“You made a deal,” the mirror-Rin said. “To forget him. To survive.”

“But I loved him—!”

“You still do. That’s why the cracks started. That’s why they’re chasing you again.”

Rin sank to her knees. Her head throbbed with pressure — like too many memories trying to squeeze through a keyhole at once.

“Tell me his name,” she whispered. “Please. I need to remember.”

The older her crouched down. Their foreheads touched.

“You already know it,” she whispered back. “Say it.”

Rin’s lips trembled.

The memories swirled.

The rooftop.

The rain.

The boy who stared through her.

And then — like a lighthouse cutting through fog —

“Rei.”

And the world shattered.

The room exploded in white.

And she was falling again — but this time upward.

Sky above her.

Light pouring in through cracks in her soul.

Someone was screaming her name—

Not Rin.

Something else.

Something older.

And then—

Her eyes flew open.

She was back.

In her bed.

At school.

Rain tapping the window.

Her body trembling.

But in her chest?

A fire had returned.

And a name echoed through her mind like a vow:

Rei.

She remembered.

And now?

They were going to pay for taking him.