Chapter 8: The Memory She Never Had
Aria didn't speak much the next morning.
She sat beneath a canvas-streaked window in the corner of the forgotten gallery, knees drawn to her chest, the paint-stained blanket wrapped around her like armor. The world outside looked brittle, like a mirror about to crack.
A school bus had stopped in the middle of the road.
Engine still warm.
Doors wide open.
No children.
No driver.
Just stillness.
Even the birds had gone quiet.
The city hadn't admitted it was dying.
But Aria could feel it now.
In the way the sky hung too low, like it was hiding something.
In the way the air trembled, as if holding a breath it couldn't release.
In the way her heart beat wrong in her chest—slower, deeper, louder.
Something was wrong with the world.
And something was wrong with her.
"I still don't believe you," she said eventually, voice barely louder than the hum of silence.
Selene didn't look up. She sat on a broken stool near the window, arms crossed, one boot tapping idly against the cracked marble floor.
"You say I… died?" Aria asked, sharper now. "That I sacrificed myself for people I don't even remember?"
Selene nodded once, solemn. "You did."
"Then where are they?" Aria's voice cracked like old glass. "Where's the proof? Where are the people I supposedly saved?"
Selene's jaw tightened. "Gone. For now."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Selene said, quietly. "It's a consequence."
Aria stood, pacing.
She moved like the room was too small for her confusion, for her grief. Her fingers kept brushing the edge of her temple, as if trying to coax memories out of hiding.
"You said I had power. That I stored people—like data? Like ghosts? That doesn't make sense."
"It didn't make sense then, either," Selene replied. "Until you rewrote reality."
Aria laughed, but it sounded like a sob in reverse. "You sound insane."
"Then explain what happened yesterday," Selene said. "Explain the place you fell into."
Aria froze.
The alley.
The breathless terror.
The space that opened beneath her like a secret doorway sewn into the seams of the world.
She remembered how it felt—like time stopped respecting rules. Like reality asked her permission.
She didn't speak.
Selene stood slowly and crossed the room.
Her steps were soundless, but her presence felt like pressure in the air—like thunder before it breaks.
"You were always powerful," she said, voice like dusk. "Even before the elements came. But you never got the chance to unlock them."
Aria blinked. "Elements?"
Selene's gaze darkened. "There were four of you. Four that mattered. You were the last."
"…What happened to the others?"
"They were taken." Her voice grew sharp. "Tested. Torn apart until they unraveled."
A beat passed.
"And you," Selene whispered, "were the only one they feared."
Aria stepped back instinctively. "Who are they?"
Selene hesitated.
"The scientists. The ones who created the virus… or found it. I don't know anymore. But they wanted to use it. Turn it into a weapon. They fed it into corpses. Watched what it did. Called it research."
Aria's breath hitched. "That's not possible."
"It was never about possibility." Selene's voice dipped. "It was about control."
She walked closer, slowly, like approaching something sacred—or dangerous.
"They lured us in. They knew what we cared about. They used children. Sounds. Images. Things that screamed for help."
Aria flinched.
"You went first," Selene said, voice nearly breaking. "You always did."
Aria wanted to deny it. To laugh. To scream.
But there was something inside her—an ache too old to name. A memory trying to wake.
"You told me to run," Selene continued. "Told us all to run. And I didn't."
Her voice cracked then, sharp with guilt.
"I stayed. I watched them take you. I heard what they did. I heard your voice until it stopped."
Aria's knees wobbled. She sat before she collapsed.
"And then," Selene said, softer now, "you saved us anyway. You let go. You broke the world open and rebuilt it around us."
Silence filled the space between them. Heavy. Tender. Bleeding.
Aria finally whispered, "Why do I feel like you're lying?"
Selene exhaled a sound between a laugh and a sob.
"Because you don't remember what love felt like," she said, turning away before Aria could see her eyes.
A pause.
Then softer, more fragile than Aria had ever heard her:
"Not yet."
Outside, the bus was still running.
But there was no driver.
No sound.
Only the wind moving through an empty world,
like someone turning the pages of a book
she once wrote herself—
and forgot how it ended.