Chapter 8: The Memory She Never Had
Aria didn't speak much the next morning.
She sat beneath a paint - speckled window in the far corner of the gallery, knees hugged to her chest, the tattered blanket wrapped around her shoulders like some makeshift armor. The space was quiet in a way that made everything else feel louder — her heartbeat, her thoughts, the twitch of nerves beneath her skin. Sunlight filtered through a break in the storm clouds, sharp and too pale, illuminating streaks of old oils across the windowpane. Outside, the world looked brittle, like a mirror on the verge of cracking.
A yellow school bus sat in the middle of the street.
No traffic, no horns. Just the bus — its engine still faintly humming, its doors yawning open, its headlights blinking in useless rhythm. There were no children. No driver. Just an eerie kind of stillness that felt more like aftermath than pause.
Even the birds were gone.
It was like the city was pretending to still exist, playing back old patterns, old routines. But beneath the surface, Aria could feel it unraveling. The way the sky hung too low, clouds sagging like water-damaged ceilings. The way the air shivered around her, invisible but tangible, as if the atmosphere itself was forgetting how to breathe. And the way her own heart beat — off tempo, heavier than it should've been. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel right either.
Something was wrong with the world.
And something was wrong with her.
"I still don't believe you," she said eventually, her voice dry from hours of silence. It wasn't defiant, not exactly. Just frayed around the edges. Disbelieving.
Selene didn't respond right away. She sat on a broken stool near the window, one leg propped up, arms folded. Her gaze was fixed on the street outside, her reflection faint in the glass like a memory waiting for permission.
"You say I died?" Aria continued, her tone sharp, as if saying it too softly would make it feel more true. "That I sacrificed myself? For people I don't even remember?"
Selene nodded. Just once.
"You did."
Aria's laugh was soft and bitter. "Then where are they?" Her fingers tightened on the edge of the blanket. "Where are the people I supposedly saved? Where's the proof?"
Selene's jaw clenched. "Gone," she said. "For now."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Selene said. "It's a consequence."
The quiet came back, but heavier this time.
Aria stood abruptly and began pacing, her bare feet making faint sounds against the cold floor. The gallery echoed her movements with soft groans and creaks, like even the building didn't want to hold the weight of this conversation.
She moved like her own skin didn't fit right. Her fingers kept grazing her temple, like she could physically summon the missing memories if she tried hard enough.
"You said I had power," Aria said, frustration sharpening her voice. "That I stored people. Like files. Or ghosts. That doesn't make sense."
Selene raised an eyebrow, her expression unreadable. "You can't store people. Not unless they're already dead."
Aria flinched. "That's not better."
Selene gave a crooked smirk. "I mean… unless you count cannibalism."
Aria stared at her.
Selene burst into quiet laughter, the sound dry and a little too close to madness. "Kidding. Mostly."
Aria just blinked, not sure whether to laugh or be alarmed.
"You used to store things you thought were important," Selene said, straightening. "Edible, non-edible, weird, sentimental — whatever mattered that day. You had compartments in your pocket dimensions for everything. First - aid kits, batteries, ramen noodles, an entire bicycle one time."
"A bicycle?"
"You said it made sense at the time."
Aria frowned. "How big were these spaces?"
Selene tapped her temple. "It wasn't about size. It was about intention. You could fold space around objects like origami, seal them away in memory. It was instinctual. Almost compulsive. You were always preparing for something."
"And the people?" Aria asked, quieter now.
Selene's smile faded.
"Only those you couldn't save," she said. "You carried them because no one else would. Not ghosts. Just echoes."
The room felt colder.
Aria didn't reply. Not right away.
But something inside her stirred — an image, maybe. A hallway lined with lockers that didn't open with keys but with grief. A place she built but never remembered building.
She hugged the blanket tighter.
Selene watched her, and for once, didn't try to fill the silence.
Aria let out a laugh that dissolved too quickly, too bitter. "You sound completely insane."
Selene didn't argue.
Instead, she said, "Then explain yesterday. Explain what happened when you fell. What you saw. What you felt."
Aria stopped walking.
The alley. The sickening drop. The feeling of being unstuck from time — like the moment itself folded inward and asked her what it should be. She remembered the way gravity bent, how the shadows reached toward her, curious, like they knew her name.
"I don't know what that was," she whispered.
Selene rose slowly and crossed the space between them. Her movements were quiet, but her presence was immense — like the gravity of a planet pressing close.
"You've always been powerful," she said. "Long before any of this started. Before the experiments. Before the collapse. It's in you. It always was."
Aria stared at her. "You said something about elements."
Selene nodded. "There were four of you. Each connected to something ancient. You were the last."
"What happened to the others?"
"They were taken." Selene's voice flattened. "Used. Studied. Torn apart molecule by molecule until they came undone."
A cold chill threaded through Aria's spine. She wanted to call it a lie. To laugh. To shout. But something about it rang too close to truth. Some part of her remembered without remembering.
Selene's voice lowered. "And you… you were the only one they couldn't break."
Aria stepped back instinctively. "Who are they?"
Selene hesitated.
"The scientists," she said at last. "The ones who found the virus — though maybe it found them. I don't know anymore. But they weren't trying to cure anything. They were building a weapon. Something that could rewrite biology. Memory. Time. They infected the dead first, just to see what would happen."
Aria's stomach turned. "That's not — no one would do that."
"They did."
Selene's eyes were steady now. Unflinching.
"They used sounds. Images. Children. Triggers wrapped in pleas for help. They knew how to get inside your head. And you…" Her voice broke. "You walked into the fire first. Every time."
Aria felt like she was losing her balance without moving. Like the ground was tilting beneath her thoughts. She sat again, suddenly, the blanket clutched around her shoulders.
"I don't remember any of it."
Selene stepped forward and crouched beside her. "I do."
Her voice was barely a breath now.
"You told us to run. And I didn't. I couldn't leave you. I stayed. I listened. I heard what they did to you. Until your voice was just… gone."
Aria looked away.
Selene didn't.
"You saved us anyway," she said. "Even when you were broken. Even when there was nothing left. You gave everything. And then you broke the world open and rewrote it. You pulled us into something new."
Aria didn't respond for a long time.
Then, softly, like the question had been hiding somewhere deep: "Why do I feel like you're lying?"
Selene didn't flinch. She didn't argue.
She just smiled, but it was the saddest smile Aria had ever seen.
"Because you don't remember what love felt like," she said. Her voice cracked, and she turned her head so Aria wouldn't see the rest of her expression. "Not yet."
Outside, the engine of the school bus finally sputtered and died.
The city exhaled a breath it didn't know it had been holding.
And somewhere, beneath all the forgetting, beneath all the silence, Aria could almost feel it — a heartbeat not entirely her own. Faint. Familiar. Like a song she used to sing in another life.
Like a name waiting to be remembered.