It started with a note.
Lena placed it delicately inside her journal and tucked it into her coat pocket. Her handwriting was gentle, slightly slanted, the way she used to write letters to her mother when she was eight.
I'm sorry you couldn't help me. You tried. I hope they remember that.
No name. No signature. Just enough to bleed regret into the scene.
She took her time dressing. Neat, dark clothes. No jewelry. Hair tied back. No stray fibers. No mistakes.
The bus ride to the clinic was unusually quiet. Rain painted the windows in long, glistening streaks, distorting the view outside — as if the world had been smudged.
Perfect, she thought. Rain makes blood hard to trace.
Dr. Elian Rowe's office smelled like cedarwood and citrus. Clean. Controlled. Just like him.
He looked up as she entered, his expression unreadable. He gestured for her to sit. She did, calmly, placing her purse beside the chair.
"You look tired," he said.
She smiled. "I've been thinking a lot."
"I'm glad you came back."
"I needed to."
He folded his hands on the desk.
"Lena, I want to be clear with you. I submitted a request this morning for external review. A psych evaluation. If your memories are surfacing as fast as I suspect, you need medical supervision."
"I understand," she said softly.
That surprised him. A slight furrow between his brows.
"No anger?"
"None. You're doing your job. You care."
He relaxed slightly. "I do."
Lena reached slowly into her purse and withdrew a small box — white, simple. She placed it on his desk.
"I brought you something."
Elian frowned. "What is it?"
"A thank you. For everything."
Cautious, he opened the box.
Inside — a fountain pen. Beautiful, black lacquer, gold trim.
"It's lovely," he said, clearly puzzled.
"You didn't have to—"
"I wanted to."
She waited until he touched it. His fingerprints now on it. Her job was nearly done.
The session unfolded slowly. He prodded. She yielded.
They danced.
Lena cried at the right times. Laughed a little.
Trembled when she mentioned "the darkness." Elian's notebook filled quickly.
He was too close now. He thought he was winning.
He didn't see the knife under her coat.
Or the sedative in his tea.
It took seventeen minutes.
The first signs came subtly — a stumble in his words, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.
He blinked. Slower. Heavy.
"Lena… what did you…?"
She rose.
Calmly. Silently.
She crossed the room and crouched in front of him.
"You were going to make me forget again," she whispered. "You were going to ruin my story."
He slurred her name, reaching weakly toward the intercom.
She tilted her head, watching him.
"Don't worry. You won't feel it."
Then the knife. Small. Clean. Just beneath the ribcage. Upward. Precise.
He gasped — a wet, pitiful sound.
Lena held him as he bled, her face close to his.
"You're the first person I killed while fully awake," she said gently.
"I think that means something."
He gurgled. Then went still.
Twenty-two minutes after she entered, Lena left the office.
She wiped the doorknob. Slipped her gloves into her purse. Took the notebook from his desk.
She dropped the suicide note near his body, weighted beneath the fountain pen.
The camera in the hallway would show her walking in. But not the murder.
The angle had been carefully tested. Her back always to the lens. Her face hidden beneath a black umbrella as she exited.
By evening, the news had already spread.
Dr. Elian Rowe — acclaimed trauma psychologist — found dead in apparent suicide.
Overwork. Compassion fatigue. The burden of his patients.
The narrative took shape like wet clay.
And Lena?
Lena sat at home, curled up on her sofa, watching the news with silent tears running down her cheeks.
She cried for the cameras. For the story. For the lie.
When the anchor used the word tragic, she laughed softly.
Later that night, she opened her journal and flipped to a new page.
She wrote:
Two down.
I'm getting better at this.
Now… who else remembers?
But even as she wrote, the lights flickered.
Something passed behind her reflection in the window.
She turned.
No one there.
Only the sound of breath.
But not hers.
A whisper, not from her own thoughts, but layered underneath:
"Perfect the lie, Lena. Become the fire."