The Forgotten Echo

Chapter 10 – Stolen Memories

I stood in front of the back door of the house.

A shovel in my hand.

The snow lay thick, but I still remembered the tree—beneath that frozen earth, Eva was waiting to be found.

I dug. Relentlessly.

My hands bled, sweat mixing with the snow, leaving cold, wet streaks. Every strike of the shovel felt like it pierced into my flesh.

Then... clank—a strange sound echoed.

My fingers touched something wooden.

A box.

I pulled it out. Opened it.

No body.

Just a blank sheet of paper, handwritten:

"You will never find me if you keep running away."

I stumbled back, heart pounding.

No corpse.

No Eva.

So, was she real at all?

I went back inside and spread all the paintings out—this time not to analyze or find clues, but simply to look. Not with my eyes, but with memory.

And I realized the last truth:

Eva never existed.

No records, no documents, no proof that she ever lived here. The images, videos, the diary—all created by me. A fragmented personality born from the need for love and guilt, from loneliness and sickness.

I made Eva.

I killed Eva.

I punished myself by forcing my mind to forget—then paint it all again. Over and over.

Each loop a desperate attempt to escape the death inside.

Eva is the memory I stole from myself.

The ending isn’t that I know the truth.

The ending is that I believe the truth.

And the truth is... I need saving.