Chapter 5-The Fragment
382 Words
Nina gasped as she jolted awake.
The world around her was dim and muffled. She was back in the Memory Vault, lying flat on her back, with the sound of buzzing machines filling the air. Efe knelt over her, panic in his eyes.
"Nina! Are you with me? Say something!"
She blinked hard, trying to focus. The orb, the other her, the warning—it all felt like it was slipping away.
"The Ember Stone," she whispered.
Efe froze. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
Nina sat up slowly, head spinning. “She said I have to find it… inside someone who forgot they ever knew me.”
His eyes clouded. “That means the erasure has already started.”
The vault screens flickered, now showing images of people Nina recognized — classmates, professors, neighbors — their faces dissolving like smoke.
“She told me to find you before you forgot too,” Nina said, voice trembling.
Efe stood, pacing. “I remember you now… but barely. It's like trying to hold onto a dream slipping through your fingers.”
“How do we stop it?”
He turned to her, face grim. “We need to get to the Ember Stone before They do. It anchors true memory across timelines.”
“Where is it?”
He paused. “There's only one place it could be. In the memory of the one who betrayed you the first time. Someone who loved you once — and forgot you completely.”
Nina’s heart twisted. “Who?”
Before he could answer, a pulse of light exploded through the vault, and a new screen lit up. A woman’s face appeared. Her eyes were blank, mouth moving like a broken record.
Then a voice—hers again.
“Run. They’re here.”
The vault’s walls shuddered.
Efe pulled Nina to her feet. “We need to move. Now.”
They bolted for the spiral staircase, the walls behind them cracking and groaning like an avalanche was coming.
As they climbed, Nina looked back at the screens—her faces flickering, vanishing one by one.
She gripped Efe’s hand tightly.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” he said. “Not again.”
But deep down, Nina feared he already had.
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