When Death Isn't the End

THE ANSWERS REMEMBERS YOU

CHAPTER 9

305 days before my life was caught short

“You were never meant to find Door #2.”

The words didn’t echo. They clung. Like smoke that didn’t need air.

I didn’t move.

The key in my hand pulsed once, like a heartbeat.

Then silence.

I looked around the dark storage room. Nothing moved. No shadows. No sudden chill. Just dust and shattered glass on the floor, glittering like sharp stars.

I should’ve run.

Instead, I whispered back, “Then why was it there?”

A long pause.

Then: Because they wanted to see what you’d do.

Who are you? I thought it, but my lips didn’t move.

The voice replied anyway.

“Wrong question.”

What’s the right one?

Another pause. Then:

“What have you already done?”

The lights flickered—briefly—and in that stuttering flash, I saw something scratched into the back wall of the room.

I hadn’t noticed it before. It hadn’t been there before.

Four words:

“THE ANSWERS REMEMBER YOU.”

My breath caught. I didn’t understand what it meant, but my body did. A sharp stab of recognition in my spine, like I’d read those words somewhere else. Lived them. Forgotten.

I left the room shaking.

—

Back home, I found the lights off.

No sign of my mother.

But something was on the kitchen table.

A red ribbon.

Wrapped around a small black box.

No note.

No sound.

Just waiting.

I picked it up carefully, half-expecting it to vanish or explode or scream.

Inside: a cassette tape.

Old. Scuffed. Labeled in smudged pen: “J-2”

I didn’t own a cassette player.

But I knew someone who might.

—

An hour later, I was at Eli’s house.

Or what used to be his house.

It was still locked up, dust settling on the front porch, mailbox overflowing. No sign of his parents. No movement.

But the side window—the one he used to sneak out from—was cracked open.

I slid in.

Memories hit me like a wave.

Posters on the wall. A stack of old tech in the corner. Bookshelves lined with things that didn’t make sense unless you were Eli. Conspiracy stuff. Symbols. Pieces of the puzzle I used to think were just part of his obsession.

I found the cassette player in his desk drawer.

Still worked.

I fed the tape in with trembling hands and pressed play.

At first: nothing.

Just static.

Then, a voice.

Mine.

“If you’re hearing this, it means the loop broke. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I’m just buying time.”

I froze.

That wasn’t a memory. That wasn’t something I’d recorded.

But it was my voice.

And it kept going.

“They’ll pretend to be people you love. They’ll leave clues, but not answers. The doors don’t just lead forward. Some take you back. To the beginning. To what you forgot.”

Static again.

Then another voice layered over mine.

Lower. Not human.

“DOOR THREE IS NOT YOURS. YET.”

I hit stop.

The room felt colder.

I turned—and saw something on Eli’s wall that hadn’t been there before.

Drawn in black marker, rough and frantic.

The symbol.

The eye.

But now, a crack split down the middle.

Like it had blinked—and changed.

—

That night, I dreamed of the field again.

The girl in the nightgown stood at the center.

But this time, she was crying.

Not loudly. Not like a child. Silently, as if mourning something already lost.

I walked toward her.

She didn’t look up.

“There used to be more of us,” she whispered.

“More of who?” I asked.

“Versions.”

“Of me?”

She nodded.

I crouched in front of her. “What happened to them?”

“They made the wrong choices.”

A beat passed.

Then she touched my forehead with her small, cold hand.

And everything turned to glass.

—

I woke up gasping.

Heart racing. Sweat-drenched sheets.

I ran to the mirror.

Checked my palms.

The words were gone.

But the key was still under my pillow.

Still warm.

Still waiting.

And I finally understood something:

This wasn’t about unlocking something out there.

It was about unlocking something in me.

Something I buried.

Or had taken from me.

And whatever it was—

It was getting closer.

I didn’t move.

Not because I was scared. I mean, I was. But this was different.

It was the kind of stillness that comes when something ancient and invisible passes through a place. Like the air itself was holding its breath, and I had to do the same.

The message was still there. Not scratched in chalk or ink—but etched deep into the concrete wall, as if clawed by fingers or carved with bone.

THE ANSWERS REMEMBER YOU.

The light from my flashlight flickered again, and for a second, I saw something in the reflection.

A face.

Mine—but not quite.

Eyes darker. Lips thinner. No scar on the brow. No hope behind the eyes.

She blinked when I did.

But she wasn’t me.

And then she was gone.

—

I backed out of the room.

Didn’t run, but didn’t walk either.

That in-between pace you take when your body’s telling you to flee, but your brain hasn’t caught up.

Back in the hallway, the lights had changed again—now glowing blue, soft and steady. Like I was being led.

I followed.

Past Door #3.

Past a hatch in the floor I hadn’t noticed before—shut tight with six bolts and a symbol drawn in faded red ink. It looked like a heart, split in two. Or a seed, cracked open.

The kind of thing you only understand once it’s too late.

I didn’t stop.

—

The hallway ended in another door. This one unlike the others.

It was glass.

Not reflective, not clear. Smoked.

I could see shapes beyond it, like shadows on the edge of flame.

As I stepped closer, the temperature dropped. A fine mist crept along the floor, curling around my shoes. My breath fogged the air in short, frantic bursts.

And then I heard it—

A heartbeat.

Not mine.

Louder. Slower. Coming from the other side of the glass.

Boom. Boom.

I reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the door.

The heartbeat stopped.

So did the lights.

—

In the darkness, something whispered.

Not words this time.

A sound—like a name remembered in reverse.

And then a question, sharp and sudden:

“Do you want the truth, or just a version you can survive?”

I didn’t know who asked it. Or if it was even asked—maybe it was pulled from me, dredged from somewhere deeper than I’d dared to dig.

I answered anyway.

“Yes.”

A click.

And the glass door slid open.

—

Beyond it, a staircase spiraled downward—narrow and endless.

I began to descend, each step softer than the last, like walking into water.

With every level, the walls shifted.

Newspaper clippings. Photos. Maps.

But not of this world.

Cities I’d never seen. Dates that didn’t exist. People with names I’d never heard, but faces I almost recognized.

Halfway down, I stopped in front of a photo pinned crookedly on the wall.

A girl.

Braids. Nightgown.

The one from the field.

And written in red beneath her photo:

“CANDIDATE 7. STATUS: INTERFERENCE.”

My knees buckled.

I pressed on.

—

At the bottom of the staircase was a room. Small. Round. Stone walls.

And in the center?

A table.

On it: a mirror. Cracked.

And beside it: a note.

Same handwriting as before.

“Use it. But only once.”

I didn’t understand.

But I picked up the mirror.

The crack ran straight through the center—splitting my reflection in two.

And for the briefest moment…

…I saw myself on both sides.

One version—me, as I was.

The other—me, but older. Sharper. Wounded. And smiling like she knew how this all ends.

I dropped the mirror.

It didn’t break.

Instead, it pulsed. Once.

Like a heartbeat.

And when I looked up, the room was gone.

I was standing back in my bedroom.

Alone.

Or so I thought.

—

Because as I pulled off my jacket, something tumbled out of the pocket.

Not the key.

A photo.

Black-and-white. Faded.

Of the girl again.

But this time, she wasn’t alone.

She was standing beside my mother.

Both of them smiling.

Like it wasn’t strange at all.

Like they’d known each other for years.