The Forgotten Echo

Chapter 8 – The Music Box

I couldn’t sleep. All night, I sat staring at the diary.

Memories came back in fragments—vague, broken—like a film reel cut and spliced in the wrong order. Eva had existed. I had loved her. But something had happened. Something terrible.

I returned to the basement—this time, without fear.

The shatt

ered mirror lay on the floor; the blood had long since dried. I studied the photos carefully—and then noticed something: in almost every picture, Eva wore a small music box around her neck, like a talisman.

I had never seen it anywhere else.

I tore through the basement. Under a rotten chair, I found the music box—broken, its mechanism bent out of shape. Yet it still played a warped, slow melody, like a lullaby for someone dying.

I went upstairs, to the bedroom at the end of the hall—the one room I had never dared to enter.

The door was locked.

Using an old hairpin, I picked the lock. The door creaked open—cold air rushed out like something waking after a long imprisonment.

The room was dusty, but neat.

The walls were covered with paintings I had made of Eva—not the death scenes, but moments of joy: her smiling, reading, dozing on the chair. Ordinary, happy moments.

I wept. These images, I no longer remembered. That love—I had completely forgotten.

On the dressing table was a folder. I opened it.

Inside were psychological treatment records—with my name.

Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

“The patient exhibits signs of dissociating from violent behavior by forming an alternate personality that does not take responsibility for actions.”

I couldn’t read any further.

When I looked up, Eva was behind me—in the mirror.

This time, she didn’t cry.

She whispered:

“Stop running, love. You know what’s coming next, don’t you?”

I froze.

The room grew colder.

She touched my shoulder.

And I remembered everything.