Kaelith didn't return home.
Not right away.
She walked the city without knowing where she was going. The cold bit through her coat. Her phone stayed buried deep in her pocket, but she didn't check it. Couldn't. The screen made her stomach turn, like it would show something she hadn't typed. A message she hadn't sent. A photo she hadn't taken.
She kept moving.
A woman with ink-stained hands and something metal in her coat.
The relic.
It had no obvious origin—just a small, round medallion, etched with patterns too ancient to be decorative. Every time she touched it, her fingers tingled. Not with pain.
With memory.
She ended up at her office.
The building was quiet at this hour. No one questioned her presence. They never did. She had a keycard that let her through places others feared.
She stepped inside her office. Closed the door. Didn't turn on the lights.
The relic sat in her palm now.
She stared at it.
And then, without thinking, she opened her desk drawer and pulled out a file.
Her own.
Every employee had one. Background checks. Psychological screenings. Education history.
She flipped through the pages, faster and faster. Medical reports. Academic records. Certifications.
All intact.
Until the final section.
The ink had been blacked out.
Whole paragraphs.
Entire pages redacted.
Her hands trembled.
She reached for her pen and began trying to scribble notes in the margins—anything she could remember. Names. Places. But her hand moved without her consent.
And what she wrote wasn't language.
It was the symbol again.
Circles. Eyes. A sun with a slit in the center.
She slammed the folder shut.
Her breath stuttered.
The mirror across the room shifted.
It didn't fall.
It bent. Warped, like glass seen through water.
She stepped toward it.
And stopped.
There was a girl standing behind the reflection.
Not a hallucination. Not her reflection.
A girl with long black hair. Bare feet. Eyes too bright for any sane expression.
Kaelith stared.
The girl raised her hand.
Kaelith didn't.
And yet, the girl mimicked her motion.
Except for one thing.
The girl's mouth moved. Soundless.
One word.
"Ashema."
Kaelith stumbled back. Her chair knocked over. Her breath caught.
She blinked——and the mirror was normal.
Empty.
Just her.
She should have left.
Should have gone home.
Instead, she checked her email. Something feral in her needing answers.
There was one new message.
No subject line.
No sender.
Just one sentence:
"You're not the first to forget. But you may be the last to survive it."
Attached was a video file.
No name.
She hovered over it.
Hesitated.
Then clicked.
The screen went black.
Then static.
Then an image.
A child.
Maybe six. Maybe seven. Standing in a circle of fire.
Others stood behind her, hooded, chanting.
And just beyond them, a man.
His face blurred by the grain of the footage, but the voice was unmistakable.
Saevus.
"Ashema," he said, holding out his hand.
The girl took it.
She was smiling.
Kaelith slammed the laptop shut.
Her pulse was thunder.
The file had no trace.
When she reopened her inbox, the message was gone.
As if it had never been sent.
But she still saw it—
That moment.
That name.
That fire.
And for the first time, she didn't feel fear.
She felt recognition.
Like the smoke had always lived inside her lungs.
Like her heartbeat was echoing something older than memory.
She looked down at the relic in her hand.
And whispered,
"Who the hell was I?"