Chapter 3
1541 Words
THE RULES OF THE DEAD
There were rules in Amnes.
Scarlett learned most of them by breaking them.
The first rule was simple.
Do not cross the eastern boundary after midnight.
Scarlett had crossed it at twelve seventeen.
The second rule was not to enter the old railway tunnels alone.
She had done that too.
The third was never to interfere with another spirit's assignment.
That one, she had learned the hard way.
But there was one rule Scarlett had never questioned.
Every spirit had to contribute.
No matter how long they had been dead, no matter how much they remembered, no matter how badly they wanted to be left alone, everyone had a purpose.
Amnes survived because of it.
That was what Elias told her when she first started asking questions.
“It doesn't make sense,” Scarlett said one afternoon.
They were sitting on the steps outside the Registry, watching spirits come and go.
“What doesn't?”
She pointed toward the street.
“That.”
A group of spirits passed them carrying crates.
“What about it?”
“They look exhausted.”
“They are.”
“They're dead.”
Elias shrugged.
“So?”
“So why are they tired?”
“Because Amnes still works like a living place.”
Scarlett frowned.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“Nothing here makes sense.”
He said it so casually that Scarlett almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead, she watched the spirits carrying the crates.
Some were transparent around the edges.
Others looked almost completely alive.
They all moved through the streets with the same quiet urgency.
“Where are they taking those?”
“Storage.”
“What are they storing?”
“Fragments.”
Scarlett turned toward him.
“What kind?”
Elias looked at her.
“You really don't remember anything, do you?”
“No.”
He sighed.
“People.”
“People?”
“Not whole people.”
He gestured toward the city.
“The living have something inside them. A soul. You know that.”
Scarlett nodded.
“When a spirit performs an assignment, the fear separates a tiny fragment from the person's soul. That fragment is collected.”
“And then?”
“It comes here.”
Scarlett looked at the crates again.
“So that's what we're doing?”
“Part of it.”
She didn't like the way he said that.
“Part of what?”
“Keeping Amnes alive.”
Scarlett stared at him.
She had always known the assignments mattered.
She just hadn't realized how much.
Elias leaned back against the stone wall.
“Amnes isn't a normal place. It wasn't built with ordinary materials.”
“Then what is it built with?”
He tapped his fingers against the stone step.
“Fragments.”
Scarlett looked around.
The old buildings.
The street lamps.
The houses.
The café where she drank coffee every morning.
“All of this?”
“Most of it.”
She looked at her hands.
“So we're taking pieces of living people's souls just to keep ourselves here.”
Elias didn't answer.
Scarlett's stomach twisted.
That was the first time she truly understood what her job meant.
Until then, scaring people had felt harmless.
A shadow in a hallway.
A door opening by itself.
A whisper behind someone's ear.
A figure standing at the end of a corridor.
She had never stayed long enough to see what happened afterward.
Now she wondered.
“Does it hurt them?”
“Not permanently.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they're still alive.”
“That doesn't answer me.”
Elias looked at her.
“No. It doesn't.”
For a while, they sat in silence.
A breeze moved through the trees.
Leaves fell onto the pavement.
Scarlett watched one land on her knee.
She picked it up.
The leaf felt real.
Too real.
She crushed it between her fingers.
“Does Amnes need them?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“All of them.”
Scarlett looked at him.
Elias continued quietly.
“If the fragments stop coming, the city starts losing shape.”
“What does that mean?”
“Buildings disappear first. Then streets. Then parts of the land.”
“And the spirits?”
“They disappear too.”
“Where do they go?”
Elias hesitated.
Scarlett knew the answer before he said it.
“The Void.”
The word felt colder than it should have.
She had heard it before.
Everyone had.
Nobody liked talking about it.
“What is it?”
“A place outside Amnes.”
“That isn't an explanation.”
“It's the only one anyone has.”
Scarlett frowned.
“So spirits who can't move on just... disappear?”
“Eventually.”
“And that's it?”
Elias nodded.
She stared at the ground.
For the first time, the city around her looked fragile.
The buildings didn't seem permanent anymore.
The streets felt temporary.
Even the sky looked like something that could vanish if enough people stopped believing in it.
Scarlett stood.
“I'm going to work.”
Elias looked up.
“You don't have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
She glanced back at the Registry.
“Because apparently I like existing.”
He smiled faintly.
“That sounds like you.”
Scarlett walked away before he could say anything else.
Her assignment that day was easy.
A man living alone in a small apartment.
Scarlett waited until he was asleep before entering.
She moved through the hallway without making a sound.
The apartment was dark.
She stood beside the bedroom door.
Then she whispered his name.
The man stirred.
Scarlett smiled.
She lifted her hand.
The lights flickered.
The bedroom door slowly opened.
The man sat upright.
His eyes widened.
Scarlett stepped into the doorway.
He screamed.
A thin silver light appeared around his body.
It drifted toward her.
Scarlett froze.
The fragment.
It floated through the air like a tiny piece of glass catching moonlight.
She reached for it.
The moment it touched her hand, she felt something.
Warmth.
Then—
A memory.
Not hers.
A little boy running across a grassy field.
His father laughing.
A red bicycle.
Summer.
The memory disappeared almost immediately.
Scarlett stood completely still.
She looked at the fragment in her hand.
She had never felt anything like it before.
She could feel the man's happiness.
Not just see it.
Feel it.
For one brief second, she understood what it meant to remember something so clearly that your entire body recognized it.
Then the fragment disappeared into her palm.
Scarlett's fingers curled.
She didn't feel satisfied.
She felt guilty.
She returned to Amnes before dawn.
Elias was waiting outside her building.
“You're back early.”
Scarlett didn't answer.
“What happened?”
“I saw something.”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“His memory.”
“Whose?”
“The man I was assigned to.”
Elias went quiet.
“That's not supposed to happen.”
“Why?”
“Spirits aren't supposed to experience the memories attached to fragments.”
“But I did.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He studied her.
Scarlett looked away.
“It was a boy.”
“What boy?”
“I don't know.”
Elias stepped closer.
“What did you see?”
She told him.
The bicycle.
The field.
The father.
The laughter.
When she finished, Elias looked troubled.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Elias.”
“Maybe it was just a reaction.”
“To what?”
“The fragment.”
“You don't believe that.”
“No.”
Scarlett folded her arms.
“Then tell me what you think.”
Elias looked toward the Registry.
“I think your memories aren't gone.”
Scarlett's expression changed.
“What?”
“I think they're somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how do you know?”
He looked at her.
“Because most people who lose their memories still have pieces left. Yours aren't pieces, Scarlett.”
She waited.
“They're blocked.”
The word echoed in her head.
Blocked.
Interrupted.
Scarlett thought about the record.
She thought about the woman at the Registry refusing to answer her.
She thought about the strange flashes she'd been seeing.
Snow.
A window.
Hands.
A voice.
Someone had taken something from her.
Or maybe someone had hidden it.
And if that was true, then there was a reason.
“Who would do that?”
Elias didn't answer.
Scarlett looked toward the pale sky.
“I want my memories back.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She turned toward him.
“I don't just want them anymore.”
Her voice was quieter now.
“I need them.”
Because somewhere inside those memories was the person she had been before death.
And Scarlett was beginning to realize something terrifying.
Maybe she hadn't simply forgotten her life.
Maybe her life had been taken from her.
And if someone had gone to the trouble of hiding it...
Scarlett intended to find out why.
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