The rain started at midnight ,soft at first, then heavy, like the sky was mourning something it couldn't speak of. I remember because I couldn't sleep. Not after what I saw.
There was a letter on my pillow, sealed in red wax. No one had been in my room. The door was locked. My window hadn't moved an inch. But the envelope was real and so was the name on the front.
It said:
"To the one who forgot me."
I stood frozen, the kind of stillness that feels like your soul's waiting to catch up to your body. I hadn't told anyone ,not even my mother about the nightmares. The woman standing at the foot of my bed, whispering my name. The blurred face. The scent of something burnt. It had been happening for weeks.
And now, a letter. On my bed.
I tore it open with trembling fingers.
| "You don't remember me, but I remember everything about you.
Your favorite hiding spot when you were seven.
The scar behind your ear.
The night you promised me you'd never forget.
You did."
My heart pounded in my chest like it was trying to escape. My knees hit the edge of the bed. I sat down, gripping the letter, trying to breathe through the storm building inside me.
| "I'm coming back.
Not to hurt you unless you make me.
I just want you to remember.
Because when you do… everything changes."|
No name. No return address. Just a smudge of ink in the corner that looked like a fingerprint.
I didn't know it then, but that letter was the beginning of everything falling apart.
And somewhere out there, someone who knew me better than I knew myself…
was already watching.
I didn't sleep.
I just sat there, staring at the letter in my hand while the storm screamed outside like it knew something I didn't.
By 4 a.m., my fingers were numb. Not from cold , from holding on too tight. Like if I let go, the whole thing would disappear and I'd start questioning whether it ever happened.
But I knew it happened. The wax was still on the floor. The paper smelled faintly of smoke and something else… something almost like herbs and earth, like whoever wrote it lived somewhere I'd never dared to go.
I didn't even know who "she" was. Or if it was a "she" at all.
When morning finally crawled in through my window, pale and heavy, I got up slowly. I folded the letter and hid it in my journal,deep in the back where no one ever looked.
Mom knocked on my door ten minutes later, cheerful like nothing in the world had cracked. "Time for school, love."
I almost laughed.
If only she knew.
I kept my eyes down at breakfast, stirring cereal I didn't plan to eat. Angela and Francisca were bickering over who stole whose socks again, and Mom was humming while flipping eggs like it was a regular Tuesday. It should have been a regular Tuesday.
But my whole body felt like I was walking on glass.
"You okay?" Mom asked me quietly, sliding a glass of juice toward me.
I nodded. Lied. "Just tired."
"Nightmares again?"
I paused. She knew about them, sure but she didn't know they were getting worse. I hadn't told her about the woman. Or the whispering. Or now, the letter.
"Yeah," I said, and looked away.
At school, everything felt distant. The hallway buzzed with life ,laughter, lockers slamming, someone playing music too loud from their bag but I walked through it like I wasn't really there.
Until someone said my name.
Not the way teachers say it, not the way friends call you. This was different.
It was whispered, soft but sharp enough to cut through the noise.
I turned, heart skipping.
No one.
Just students talking, walking, distracted.
I shook it off, kept going.
But then it came again.
"You forgot me."
I spun around..
There.
At the far end of the hallway.
A girl I didn't recognize standing still while the world moved around her. Her face pale, her eyes locked on mine.
And then she smiled.
Not the kind of smile you give a friend.
The kind you give a secret