There was a rule Salem never agreed to but had always followed.
Don’t remember too much.
And tonight, he broke it.
He didn’t mean to. It started with a flicker—an old dream, a flash of a moment that didn’t belong to this week, or this timeline. A birthday cake. A girl with half a face. A clock that wouldn’t stop spinning.
Then came the sound. Static. Heavy, dragging through his thoughts like chains on a hospital floor.
And then…
> He remembered everything he had forgotten.
All at once.
---
He collapsed.
Not dramatically. Just quietly. Like a puppet whose strings had all been cut at the same time.
The floor caught him like a friend who didn’t really care. Cold. Unforgiving. Real.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. Crying required stable memory. Emotions. Context. None of which he ha
