Memory of Others

Chapter 2: The Second Face

Anna had not been able to sleep for three nights.

Not because of exhaustion. She had once absorbed the memories of war victims, of those tortured in the gray areas of memory, reliving the pain of life and death hundreds of times. But this time was different.

The new memory did not cause her pain. It filled her with fear.

Fear because the woman in the memory died with a face identical to hers. Not just the features, but also the eyes, the demeanor, even the way she clenched her hands before collapsing to the ground – Anna recognized it in herself, like a subconscious reflex.

Anna stood in front of the mirror, trying to find some point of difference – but it was useless. She herself could not be sure: was she looking at herself, or just a replica of that memory?

She had no proof of her existence, other than... memories. But if memories could be bought, sold, programmed – then what was left that was real?

She sat at her desk, booting up NeuroTrack, an advanced memory analysis tool, which was software she had written while working as a research assistant at the Celestis Neuroscience Institute. The software was designed to trace the origins of memories – separating layers of neural data, determining authenticity, and checking for signs of tampering.

She plugged in the storage drive. The memory immediately appeared as a slow-motion sequence of images.

A dark room, flickering light from outside through a window. A noise – unclear if it was a door or breathing. The woman appeared, staggering. The face... of her.

Then a loud noise – someone burst in. A shadow. Unidentifiable. A whisper – choked by layers of noisy data:

“…do not let… remember…”

Right after that was the knife stab.

Data interrupted.

Anna stepped back, trembling slightly. This was not a normal memory. It had been erased and then restored – an extremely rare phenomenon, occurring only when a memory had been completely eliminated by advanced techniques,then it was "fished" from the remnants of the nervous system.

Who sent this memory – who are they? And why send it to her?

She checked the storage code. No connection. No point of origin. A floating storage, with no source – violating all regulations of the World Memory Commission.

Anna had no choice left. She had to find Haru.

________________________________________

Haru was a memory hacker. He had once been her client – selling her a completely empty memory, like a dark film without light. But inside, he left an encrypted message:

She sent a signal to Haru through the dark web – an untraceable communication channel. Just a few minutes later, a short response appeared:

"Have you seen it yet? Case year x02, NOEMA?"

NOEMA.

The name stirred something in Anna – a fragment of a memory without a clear shape, like a puzzle piece shrouded in mist. She asked again:

"What is NOEMA?"

"It is a project for erasing and restructuring the self. A program erased from history. You are a part of it."

Haru sent a small data package – heavily encrypted, but with Anna's brain, decoding it took only a few seconds. Inside was an old profile photo: a girl with a face identical to Anna's, but named "G04 - Test Subject Number 4." Below was a note:

"Record complete neural structure. Install personality codename ANNA. Emotional congruence level: 93%. Status: activated."

Anna sat in silence.

If this is true – then she is not Anna. She is just... a personality loaded into a body that once belonged to someone else.

And perhaps, the woman in the memory – is the real "Anna." She is dead. And the one sitting here – is the remaining memory, living on in a modified shell.

Anna opened the "Memory Journal." Her hands trembled, but her mind remained coldly clear. She began to write:

Memory number 932 – Signs of memory restored from the erased region. Subject unclear. Face matches her own. Could be an image of herself before the personality was changed. Conclusion: no longer certain about the current self.

Additional note: Need to retrieve NOEMA records. Haru warns: danger. But there is no turning back.

She thought to herself: If memories make a person – then when someone changes memories, they have already killed me, right?

She looked up, seeing herself in the mirror once more.

This time, she no longer recognized anyone in there.

And just then, the screen lit up – an anonymous message appeared:

"Don't search anymore. That is not a memory – that is a death order."