#The Dead Know
#009
Rain slapped the rooftop of their hideout like it was trying to scrub the city clean.
Eden stitched up the gash on Asher's arm in silence. They hadn't spoken since leaving the Fringe District.
Not really.
Not after learning he had been Bliss's first experiment.
"You okay?" she asked finally, not looking up.
"No." He winced. "But I know where to go next."
She raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't a yes."
He pulled out the charred Bliss capsule from his pocket. It no longer glowed, but the mark it left on his palm, faint spiral lines, burned like a memory that wouldn't die.
"It wasn't just memory storage," he said. "It was a siphon. Bliss capsules don't just hold pain. They feed something."
Eden sat back. "Feed what?"
Asher looked her in the eye. "The ones who don't forget."
A long silence.
She processed that, then shook her head slowly. "You're saying there are people out there who—"
"Consume pain," he interrupted. "Ours. Traded, stolen, sold. They don't erase memories. They harvest them."
He tapped the datapad she had yanked from the warehouse server. "There was one name that came up again and again. Codename: Teller. Always watching. Always buying high-weight memories."
Eden narrowed her eyes. "Urban legend. No one's ever met the Teller."
"They don't need to be met. Just remembered."
Asher stood. "We find them. We follow the trail of capsules. High-intensity trades, places where people forget and never return. That is where they have been hiding."
"You're talking about crossing into Greyspace," she said, suddenly still. "That's off-grid. Unregulated. Memory locks don't work there."
"That's the point."
Two hours later
They stood at the border checkpoint, where Ether District ended and lawless data shadows began. Greyspace stretched like a virus on the map, blank, dangerous, and very much alive.
"Last chance to back out," Asher said.
Eden smirked. "You really don't know me."
They crossed.
And it felt like stepping off the edge of memory itself.
Greyspace wasn't dark. It was too bright. Unnaturally so. Ads for fake memories shimmered overhead. "Live a better past!" "Rent your regrets!"
People with blank stares passed by, each one dragging behind a capsule of their own.
And then, like a whisper
Asher.
He turned. No one.
The name repeated.
Asher Vale.
This time Eden heard it too.
Then, through the crowd, they saw him.
A man in a grey suit. No eyes. No mouth. But his presence was loud.
He gestured for them to follow.
Without a word, they did.
A memory vault deep beneath Greyspace
The walls weren't walls. They were shelves, rows upon rows of soul capsules. Billions.
Each one still faintly pulsing.
The man finally spoke, voice like static woven into silk.
"You have what was stolen."
Asher stepped forward. "You're the Teller."
"No," the figure said. "I'm the Debt."
"What does that mean?" Eden asked.
The man raised a hand. Dozens of capsules floated forward. All had Asher's name on them.
"You sold what could not be sold. Now it returns."
They began to spin.
One cracked open.
And Asher screamed.
A memory, not his, poured in.
A child's face. A fire. The smell of burning plastic.
Another capsule shattered. Another memory.
Then another.
Eden reached for him, but the Teller stopped her.
"He must remember."
And then, just like that, the pain stopped.
Asher lay panting on the ground, soaked in sweat.
But he wasn't broken. He was still.
He rose slowly.
"I remember them," he whispered. "All of them."
The Teller nodded. "Then you are no longer a thief. You are a witness."
Asher's eyes burned.
"I'll be more than that."
He turned to Eden. "We're not just exposing Bliss anymore. We're dismantling it. Piece by piece."
She smiled. "Took you long enough."
They walked out of the vault together, two silhouettes against a world built on forgetting.
But not anymore.
Asher Vale had remembered.
And now, so would everyone else.