The Missing Photograph
372 Words
Iris barely slept that night.
The unknown message echoed inside her mind.
"Tomorrow, one more person will forget you."
She wanted to believe it was nothing more than a cruel prank.
But after everything that had happened...
She couldn't.
The next morning, Iris searched through every photo album she owned.
If someone was truly erasing her existence...
Then the photographs would prove it.
She pulled an old wooden box from beneath her bed.
Inside were dozens of printed pictures she had carefully kept since childhood.
Her hands trembled as she flipped through them.
There was one photo she knew by heart.
It was taken on a rainy afternoon.
A little boy and a little girl stood beneath a blue umbrella, smiling with their pinky fingers locked together.
The day Ethan made his promise.
She found the photograph.
Relief washed over her.
"It's still here..."
But as she looked closer...
Her smile faded.
The little girl was there.
The umbrella was there.
Even the rain-soaked street was exactly the same.
Only one person was missing.
Ethan.
The space where he had been standing was completely empty, as if he had never existed.
"No..."
Iris whispered.
"This can't be real."
She searched through another album.
A school festival.
Gone.
A birthday celebration.
Gone.
A graduation picture.
Gone.
Every photograph that should have shown Ethan beside her had changed.
It was as though someone had carefully erased him from every memory frozen in time.
Tears blurred Iris's vision.
She immediately grabbed her phone and called Chloe.
"Please answer..."
After a few rings, Chloe picked up.
"Hello?"
"Chloe, do you remember the photo from my tenth birthday? Ethan was standing beside us."
There was a brief silence.
"I'm sorry, Iris..."
"I don't know anyone named Ethan."
The call ended.
Iris slowly lowered her phone.
At that exact moment...
A knock echoed from the front door.
Three slow knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
She wasn't expecting anyone.
Carefully, she walked toward the door and looked through the peephole.
No one was there.
Confused, she opened the door.
A small black envelope lay on the floor.
There was no name.
No address.
Only a single sentence written in silver ink.
**"Stop searching for the truth... or you'll disappear next."**
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