Memory Never Dies
611 Words
Rain pattered softly on the windows of the new school, the real one—St. Elora High. Not a clone. Not a simulation. Just ordinary chipped bricks, old desks, and the creak of wooden floors under teenage footsteps.
For once, Rina felt normal.
She watched the droplets race each other down the glass. The world outside was grey, but it was a free grey—not the polished silver of a prison pretending to be perfect.
Lala sat beside her in the library, flipping through a comic book. “Still having the dreams?”
“Not exactly dreams,” Rina murmured. “More like… echoes.”
Lala paused. “Like the ones from before?”
“No,” Rina said. “Worse. These ones are starting to talk to me.”
That night, Rina dreamed of mirrors.
Not glass mirrors—but people. Girls.
They stood in a circle around her bed, silently watching her. All looked like her, but not quite. Some had scars. Others wore different uniforms. One had black eyes.
One was on fire.
The burning one stepped forward.
“You thought ending the Architect meant ending us,” it said, voice cracking like wood in a furnace. “But you carried us all with you.”
Rina sat up in bed, gasping—soaked in cold sweat.
She checked her phone.
3:33 AM.
Her reflection in the phone screen blinked—but she didn’t.
The next day
“I think I brought something back,” Rina told Lala as they sat by the lockers. “From the system.”
“You mean a virus?” Lala asked.
Rina shook her head. “No. A… consciousness.”
She pulled out a sketchbook and showed her a series of drawings. None of them were intentional. Just idle sketches made during class.
Every face was hers.
Every expression was wrong.
Lala’s eyes widened. “That’s the one that tried to bite me in the loop.”
“I didn’t draw it on purpose,” Rina whispered. “It just showed up.”
Later That Week
A student disappeared.
Her name was Haley. She sat in class two seats from Rina. Always quiet. Always early. Always polite.
Until she wasn’t there.
No one remembered her.
Except Rina.
“I talked to her yesterday,” she told a teacher.
“Haley who?” the teacher asked, genuinely confused.
At home, Rina searched her school yearbook.
No Haley.
No empty seat on the class photo.
The spot where she should’ve been was just… blank.
Rina opened her sketchbook.
On the latest page:
Haley’s face.
But her mouth was sewn shut.
That night
Claire appeared in her dream—not like before. Not a ghost. Not an echo. But herself.
“Not everything died with the system,” Claire said.
“I know,” Rina whispered.
“You’re the Root Memory Core. You didn’t just break the Architect.” Claire’s voice trembled. “You became the new anchor.”
“Then why am I seeing things?” Rina asked. “Why are they coming back?”
Claire stepped closer. Her hand was cold on Rina’s wrist.
“Because memory doesn’t die. It evolves.”
Rina woke up with something clenched in her hand.
A small piece of paper.
Torn from the chapel book that never existed.
On it, written in gold ink:
"Rewrite successful.
But the fragments still want a home."
From her closet, Rina heard something fall.
She opened it slowly.
Inside—hanging in the back—was her old school uniform.
The one from St. Celestine’s.
She hadn’t brought it with her.
She had burned it.
- Writer
