CHAPTER THREE__THE MEMORY THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST
955 Words
Asher stared at the last message until the words began to blur.
HE WAS THERE THAT NIGHT.
His eyes remained fixed on the screen, but his mind was somewhere else. He kept thinking about Jace's face when he had asked about seven years ago. There had been no confusion in his expression, no surprise. Just fear.
Asher opened the message box and typed a question.
WHAT NIGHT?
He waited.
Nothing.
He tried again.
WHAT HAPPENED SEVEN YEARS AGO?
Still nothing.
He slipped the phone into his pocket and left the classroom.
Jace was standing near the stairs, talking to another student. He looked completely normal, laughing about something as if the conversation they had just had never happened.
Asher walked straight toward him.
The moment Jace saw his face, the smile disappeared.
Asher didn't bother pretending everything was fine. He told Jace about the message and watched his reaction carefully.
Jace tried to dismiss it at first, but he couldn't hide the tension in his face. When Asher mentioned the night from seven years ago, Jace's eyes shifted away.
That was enough.
He knew.
Asher had spent the entire morning wondering whether the strange messages were lies. Now he wasn't so sure.
He asked Jace directly if he had known Evelina before.
For a moment, Jace said nothing.
Then he admitted that they had known each other.
Very well.
The answer left Asher strangely unsettled.
If Evelina had really been part of his life, why couldn't he remember her?
Jace told him that some memories were better left alone, but Asher refused to accept that. He had spent his entire life believing he knew who he was. Now everyone around him seemed to know something about his past that had somehow been erased from his mind.
Before Jace could explain further, someone spoke from the end of the hallway.
Evelina.
She had been standing there quietly, listening.
Jace's expression changed the moment he saw her.
Evelina looked at Asher with an expression he couldn't understand. There was fear in her eyes, but there was something else beneath it. Something almost painful.
She told him he needed to stop asking questions.
That only made him more determined.
Asher reminded her that she had known him seven years ago. He wanted to know what happened between them and why everyone seemed terrified of the past.
Evelina refused to answer.
Then Asher mentioned the things he had started seeing in his mind.
A red door.
Rain pouring outside.
A little girl standing in front of him.
Someone screaming his name.
Evelina's face changed instantly.
For the first time, Asher knew for certain that those strange flashes weren't meaningless.
She knew what they were.
She looked at him as though she had just realized something terrible.
He was remembering.
Jace warned her not to say anything, but Evelina only stared at Asher for a few seconds before walking away.
Asher wanted to follow her.
Jace stopped him.
He told Asher that he didn't understand what he was getting himself into and that he wasn't supposed to remember any of this yet.
Yet.
That single word stayed in Asher's mind.
Not supposed to remember.
It sounded less like a warning and more like a confession.
---
Asher couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day.
Every time he closed his eyes, the same images returned.
Rain.
A red door.
Evelina.
And a little boy standing beside her.
Him.
But the memory always ended at the same point.
The red door.
He could never see what was behind it.
Whenever he tried to force himself to remember, his mind went completely blank.
By the time school ended, Asher had made a decision.
He wasn't going home.
He needed answers.
He returned to the classroom and opened the old photograph again.
For several minutes, he studied every detail.
The children.
The building.
The date.
Then he noticed something he had missed before.
There was a sign above the entrance of the school building.
Asher zoomed in.
His heart skipped.
He recognized the name immediately.
It was the same school he was currently attending.
He stared at the photograph in disbelief.
That couldn't be possible.
He had never attended this school as a child.
At least, that's what he had always believed.
He zoomed in again.
There was no mistake.
The photograph had been taken here.
Seven years ago.
A sound behind him made him turn.
Evelina stood in the doorway.
She looked at the photograph in his hand, then at him.
Her expression told him she already knew what he had discovered.
Asher remembered her words from earlier.
You shouldn't have come back.
Now he wanted to know what she meant.
Evelina didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she looked toward the empty hallway behind him, almost as though she was afraid someone might be listening.
Then she finally told him why she had been frightened.
The last time Asher remembered this place, someone had died.
Asher felt a chill run through him.
He asked who.
Evelina looked directly at him.
She told him that it was him.
Then she walked away.
Asher remained frozen in the middle of the classroom.
His mind struggled to process what she had just said.
He looked down at the photograph again.
The little boy beside Evelina stared back at him.
His younger self.
Seven years ago.
At this school.
And suddenly, another thought entered his mind.
If he had died here...
How was he standing here now?
His phone vibrated.
Asher slowly looked down.
Another message from the unknown number.
SHE LIED.
His heart began pounding.
A second message appeared.
YOU DIDN'T DIE THAT NIGHT.
Asher stared at the words.
Then the final message arrived.
SHE DID.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD