Chapter 7: The Unseen Thief

Maria Sorrelli was always underestimated. She had that kind of face—the one you wouldn't remember after a few minutes, the kind of face that blended in with the crowd. She wasn't striking or outlandish, but she had the kind of charm that could make anyone drop their guard. That's how she had survived, how she had thrived.

The world didn't know who Maria Sorrelli really was. They thought they did—just another name in the mundane daily bustle of a city that chewed up and spat out its people. But Maria? She was something more. Or rather, something other.

Maria was a thief—a professional, the best in her line of work. But not the kind of thief you'd expect. She wasn't interested in jewels or money. No, Maria's target was something much more valuable: memories.

It started when she was just a girl, running through the back alleys of New York, learning how to disappear in plain sight. She would slip between shadows, take what she needed, and be gone before anyone noticed. She wasn't trying to survive anymore; she was learning the art of vanishing.

And then one day, she found something that changed everything. She discovered a technique—an ability—that most thieves could only dream of: the power to steal memories. The kind of memory that could change a person's entire life without them even knowing it.

At first, it had been small things. A moment of embarrassment, a forgotten promise. Just little bits of time, fleeting fragments. But as Maria honed her craft, she realized she could do more. She could take away the pain. She could erase the regrets, the trauma, the ghosts that haunted her victims' lives.

It was an art, a delicate operation. She would use a combination of ancient rituals and modern technology, blending both to quietly extract the most precious of memories—those moments that defined a person, that shaped their very soul. Once she'd taken them, they would be hers, to do with as she pleased.

Maria didn't steal from the rich, the powerful, or the famous. No, she preferred those who lived in the shadows, those who believed their lives didn't matter. Their memories were so much more fragile, easier to crack open, like a delicate shell holding something priceless inside. And Maria was a master at prying it free.

But there was one memory—one stolen fragment—that she couldn't quite let go of.

It had been years ago. She was just starting out, learning her craft, when she had taken a memory from an unsuspecting man—a businessman, ordinary enough, but his memory was different. He didn't have anything extraordinary to give, no great wealth or untold secrets. But there was something haunting about that memory—a quiet desperation, the feeling of a life slipping away unnoticed.

The man had been unaware, of course. He never remembered the moment she had taken it, and he went on living his life, much the same as before. But Maria couldn't shake the feeling that this one memory—the one she had kept for herself—was different. It didn't belong to her. She didn't know why, but it gnawed at her. It felt wrong. It didn't belong in her hands.

That's when Maria made the biggest mistake of her life. She decided to return the memory.

She found the man again. She found where he lived, tracked his every move. It wasn't hard—he was ordinary, just a person lost in the noise of the world. She waited until he was alone, until he was vulnerable. She slipped into his apartment, the same way she always did, undetected.

But when she tried to return the memory, something went wrong.

Instead of gently placing the memory back where it belonged, the stone she used to transfer it—an ancient relic passed down through generations—shattered in her hand. The memory fractured, splintered like broken glass. And in that instant, she felt something terrible, something overwhelming, take root inside her chest.

The man—the businessman—didn't wake up the next morning.

He wasn't dead. No, something worse had happened. He was gone, but his body remained. He had no memories, no emotions, no sense of self. He was a shell, a blank slate. Nothing was left of the person he had been.

Maria felt the weight of what she had done. In trying to undo her mistake, she had made it worse. The relic, the magic, the power that had been keeping her safe—it was no longer working.

She had stolen something far more precious than a memory. She had stolen a person's soul.

Maria could feel the cold tendrils of the curse tightening around her. It wasn't just the relic that was broken—it was everything she had come to rely on, everything she had believed in. The memories she had stolen over the years, the lives she had changed, the faces she had erased—they were all coming for her.

The very thing that had made her the best was now the thing that was going to destroy her.

Her life began to unravel. No matter where she went, no matter how far she ran, the faces of those she had wronged began to haunt her. They appeared in mirrors, in the corner of her vision, in the darkness of the night. She couldn't escape them. The memories of the stolen lives were closing in on her, suffocating her, claiming what little remained of her own soul.

And then it happened. She was in a hotel room, sitting alone in the dim light, when a knock came at the door. She froze. No one ever knocked on her door. She hadn't been expecting anyone.

She stood slowly, her heart racing. With a trembling hand, she opened the door.

There was no one there. But on the floor, just inside the threshold, lay a single envelope.

Maria bent down, her fingers shaking as she picked it up. She opened it slowly and found a single sheet of paper inside. There were only three words written on it:

"Your soul is mine."

That was the moment she understood what she had done. The curse had taken hold of her. There was no escape now. It was too late.

The story of Maria Sorrelli, the unseen thief, would end as quietly as she had lived. A thief of memories, a manipulator of lives, but in the end, she had nothing left but her regrets—and a life she could no longer remember.

The people she had taken from, the faces she had erased, would find their way back to her in the end. Her time had run out. Her reckoning was coming, and there was no one left to save her.

And as she sat alone, clutching the envelope in her hands, she realized with a sinking heart that the one thing she had stolen from others—the one thing she had taken without hesitation—was now the one thing she couldn't return: herself.

Some people think they can cheat time, cheat fate, or escape the consequences of their actions. Maria thought she could steal what didn't belong to her and walk away unscathed.

But the universe always collects its debts. It always finds a way to make things right.

And in the end, Maria Sorrelli learned the hard way: Memories can't be stolen without a price.

For her, the cost was her own existence.