The unknown number called again.
Once.
Twice.
No voicemail. No message.
Linh stared at the screen, her pulse steady, her mind unraveling.
Some doors didn't open with force.
Some needed to be unlocked with the fear you carried alone.
---
Three days later, Linh stood before a crumbling apartment building on the outskirts of Paris.
The address had come in an encrypted text.
Three words:
"If you still care."
The building loomed like a carcass forgotten by time.
Cracks veined the walls. Rust bled from the gutters.
As Linh stepped toward the entrance, a whisper of movement flickered across the third-floor window.
Gone before she could look up.
Was it just the curtains?
Or was someone already watching her?
She hesitated.
Pressed the buzzer once.
Static. No answer.
Pressed again.
A crackle, then a tired, suspicious voice:
"Name?"
Her throat tightened around her own name.
"Linh," she said.
Another pause. Another crackle.
Then the door buzzed open.
---
Inside, the hallway was a tunnel of dust and stale boiled vegetables.
Faint footsteps echoed overhead—a deliberate sound, not accidental.
Linh quickened her pace, heart a slow thud against her ribs.
At the third floor, an old woman cracked open a door.
Wordless. Beckoning with a tilt of her chin.
She entered.
The flat was stripped bare: one table, two chairs, a battered hot plate hissing with a forgotten kettle.
And there—by the window—was Huyền.
She had changed.
Short hair. Sharper bones. Eyes hollowed into something brittle.
But Linh recognized her instantly—not by appearance, but by something older:
An echo from the nights when all they had were torn prayers.
"You came," Huyền said.
The words fell between them like pebbles into a dry well.
Linh sat without invitation.
The kettle screamed into the heavy air, then clicked off.
Neither moved.
"I don't have the answers you're looking for," Huyền said.
"I didn't come for answers," Linh replied.
"I came for the questions we never asked."
---
Slowly, Linh reached into her jacket.
Two pieces of cloth emerged—one stitched with M, trembling and worn; the other stitched with H, edges faded into silence.
She placed them gently on the table.
The air tightened—like a held breath.
Huyền stared.
Her hand twitched, pulled back instinctively, as if the cloth might scorch her.
When she finally reached out, it wasn't to grab, but to hover—fingers trembling in the stale light.
Her mouth opened—closed.
Then, barely a whisper:
"Where... did you find this?"
"Mai," Linh said quietly. "And later… you."
The memory hit Huyền like a body blow.
She clutched her wrist as if it hurt, eyes darting to the door, to the windows, to the walls—anywhere but the cloth.
"I don't remember," she said quickly, too quickly.
"You do," Linh said, voice gentler than pity, fiercer than accusation.
"You've always remembered. You were just taught to forget."
---
The silence that followed was heavier than walls.
At last, Huyền spoke—each word dragging itself from a broken place:
"There are things... you survive only by forgetting."
"And things you survive only by remembering," Linh answered.
Their eyes locked.
Something passed between them—not recognition, but resurrection.
The kettle had long since cooled.
But the past, it seemed, had only started to boil.
---
Huyền leaned forward.
She whispered:
"You know why they buried us."
Linh didn't flinch.
"Because memory is dangerous," she said.
Huyền shook her head slowly, a terrible sadness hollowing her out.
"No.
Because memory...
is a weapon."
---
A gust of wind rattled the broken window pane.
Somewhere outside, a door slammed shut—too hard, too precise to be an accident.
Linh stiffened.
The feeling she'd had earlier returned:
Not hunted.
But watched.
Watched by someone who needed the past to stay buried.
Someone who had just heard that a door was opening again.
And this time—it wouldn't close easily.