He woke in a room he didn't recognize.
The light was soft. Not warm. Not cold. Just… there.
The walls were a pale blue.
Wait.
Weren't they grey?
He blinked. A flicker of unease passed behind his eyes like a shadow you only see in reflections. The bed was made. The room still held that off-putting neatness, as if nothing had ever really happened here.
On the nightstand lay an envelope.
It was a shade darker than the one he remembered.
If he remembered.
This one had something written on the front now. Two words, scrawled in ink that looked smeared by time:
"Don't Forget."
He opened it. The paper inside was torn along the edge—hastily ripped. Different handwriting. Slanted letters again, but shakier.
"The Archivist is lying.""Trust the girl with the red shoes.""If you read this more than once, stop reading."
He blinked again. His chest tightened. The handwriting on the envelope—that was his own. He knew it the way a voice is known by its echo.
The mirror across the room was still there, but the reflection didn't move with him this time.
It stood perfectly still, eyes locked with his, smiling just a second too late.
He turned away before it could finish.
This wasn't the same morning.
This wasn't the same room.
But the door was still there.
Still waiting.
He stepped through.
The hallway was shorter now. Dimmer. No flickering, no film grain. Just a long, narrow stretch of wood and silence. There was a soft dripping sound, like rain inside walls.
He walked.
This time, the hallway ended in a single door—not one that blended into the wall like before. This one was red. Scratched. The kind of door that remembered things.
He pushed it open.
The room inside was not a room.
It was a street.
A cobbled road beneath a heavy twilight. Streetlamps glowed with a strange blue tint. Buildings curved inward like they were listening. And there—at the far end of the road—was a figure.
A girl.
No older than twelve. She wore a pale dress and bright red shoes that reflected light that wasn't there.
She was skipping in slow, deliberate rhythm.She didn't look at him.But he knew her.
He didn't know how.
His voice came without thinking. "Do I know you?"
The girl stopped.
She turned—not startled, not afraid. Her eyes were clear and ancient.
"You asked me that already."
He opened his mouth.
"You never remember the first time. But that's okay.""You're not supposed to."
She turned again and began to walk down a side alley. The street behind her flickered, then folded away—like pages of a book being un-written.
"Wait—" he said, stepping forward.
But something pulled at his feet.
He looked down.
The cobblestones were gone.
There was only dirt.
Black, loose soil, shifting like breath beneath him.
He looked at his hands. They were stained with something.
It looked like ink.It smelled like earth.
He staggered back.
The alley. The street. The girl—
Gone.
Only silence remained.
He sat down, shaking.
In his hand—he didn't remember picking it up—was a book.
The cover was blank.
He opened to the first page.
One sentence:
"You Will Forget This Story."