Fragments of What We Were

The air remained dense, the space timeless and without place. Eduardo walked beside me as if nothing had changed, but something in his gaze told me that, even though we were together, something had shifted. The connection we once shared had vanished, as if an invisible veil separated us, a line we could no longer cross.

I looked at him with a mix of frustration and sadness. How could I be so close to him and still feel like we were drifting apart? There were moments when, for a second, his eyes would gleam with an intensity I knew well, but it would vanish as quickly as a shadow. There was no doubt that something within him had been lost, and I, who had always been by his side, now felt like a stranger in his life.

"Are you okay?" I asked, though I wasn't sure if the question was for him or for myself. It wasn't about whether he was physically okay. We both knew we were safe, at least for now. It was something deeper, something breaking within us.

He looked at me, and for a moment, our eyes met. But there was no recognition in his gaze. There was no spark that had always been there, that unique connection we once shared. It was as if, suddenly, I was a stranger to him, as if he had never known me.

"Yeah, sure," he replied, offering no more emotion than a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't worry about me."

I fell silent, unable to find the right words. I didn't know how to tell him what I was feeling, or how to explain what was happening. But there was something in his tone, a hollowness, that made me wonder if he had truly forgotten everything we had lived through together.

Had he really forgotten? Or was it something more complicated?

I turned my gaze toward the figure before us, standing still, as if waiting for something. Something was about to happen, we both knew that. But, at the same time, I felt trapped between the fear of the unknown and the hope of finding answers—answers that maybe Eduardo no longer sought, or perhaps didn't even remember we needed.

"Do you remember… everything we've been through together?" I dared to ask, barely a whisper, almost as if I feared the answer.

He furrowed his brow, turning my question over in his mind, as if the words seemed foreign to him, as if the emotions behind them were distant, something that no longer belonged to him. There was no spark of recognition, just an empty expression, as if he couldn't connect the dots between what I was saying and what had been.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, in a soft yet firm tone, barely glancing at me.

The blow was silent, but I felt it deeply. Everything I had shared with him, all the memories I thought we had forged together, were now nothing but empty echoes for him. Perhaps I would never know what it was like to have him close in that way again. Perhaps he would never remember that we were more than just two lost souls in the dark.

Time seemed to slow, and the figure observing us, now closer, turned its back, as if allowing us to continue in our confusion, in our despair. It had tested us, and maybe the hardest test was the one we were now facing: the loss of what we once were.

"What happens now?" Eduardo asked, staring ahead, without turning to me.

His tone was neutral, as if he no longer expected answers, as if he had accepted that the path ahead wasn't clear, nor was it important. Maybe, in his mind, he had already forgotten the meaning of what we had sought. Maybe he had simply decided to move on, regardless of what he had left behind.

"I don't know," I replied, my voice breaking, as if by saying it, I was finally admitting what I had feared. "I don't know."

And in that moment, part of me realized something I hadn't wanted to accept. Maybe what we were going through now wasn't just about forgetting the past. It was about fate, a truth we still didn't understand. Perhaps Eduardo wasn't simply forgetting what we had shared. Maybe there was something greater pulling us apart, something beyond our comprehension.

Suddenly, the darkness around us seemed to grow thicker, as if reality itself was overflowing, as if we were about to be swept away by a current we couldn't control. The figure observing us began to move toward us, and a shadow, a heavy presence, began to fill the air.

There was no turning back. But what worried me wasn't what lay ahead, but what had been left behind.

Chapter 7: Fragments of What We Were (Continued)

The figure before us took a step forward, its shadow stretching over the void around us, as if the space itself was beginning to collapse under its presence. The silver light that had once enveloped us now seemed to fade, and the pressure in the air grew heavier as we approached something unknown.

Eduardo didn't turn toward me. He didn't. His attention was fixed on the figure, his eyes reflecting something strange, as if he were caught in a trance he couldn't wake from. His face was serene, almost distant, and somehow, that terrified me more than any monster or threat that could be lurking.

I, on the other hand, couldn't take my eyes off him. The void forming between us became more evident with each passing second, like an invisible crack separating us. The Eduardo I knew, the one who had always been my anchor, the one who had shared laughter, tears, and moments that no one else could understand, seemed to be fading. In his place stood a stranger who, though he looked the same, was not the same.

"Eduardo…" My voice came out almost as a whisper, a feeble attempt to reclaim the ground I was losing. My heart was pounding, and my mind was a whirlwind of thoughts. Had I lost him forever?

But he didn't answer. His gaze remained fixed on the figure, which now seemed to take form, revealing an even more imposing presence. As the shadow dissipated, a dark light emerged from the figure, bathing us in a somber, almost ghostly hue.

The figure spoke again, its voice deep and resonant, as if it came from the depths of an unfathomable cavern.

"Are you ready to face what has brought you here?" The voice was neither kind nor cruel, simply imposing, a force of nature that seemed to challenge everything we knew.

I didn't know how to respond. The word "no" seemed caught in my throat, but the fear that Eduardo might not react, that he would remain the empty shadow staring at me, kept me silent.

The figure continued, its presence growing stronger. It was as if everything that had been real up until that moment was vanishing, as if we were crossing a line where the known no longer existed.

"Time will not be kind to you," it said, and with those words, a jolt of terror ran down my spine. Time. My greatest ally and my worst enemy, the one thing that had been my only hope to keep him by my side, now seemed to be turning against me.

Eduardo showed no signs of recognizing the words. He stood there, but it was as if he were somewhere else, as if his thoughts no longer belonged to this place, as if he wasn't with me. The idea that he had drifted so far from me filled me with a deep sadness, something I couldn't understand, something that left me empty.

My breath became erratic. I was losing him, I knew it. And yet, I couldn't abandon my fight. I couldn't give up. I couldn't let fate decide for me.

I took a breath and forced myself to speak, though my voice trembled.

"Eduardo, please, can you hear me? You can't…" But he interrupted me, slowly turning toward me. His eyes, empty and disconnected, scanned me from top to bottom, but there was no spark of recognition, no trace of the connection we once had.

"I don't know what you're talking about." His tone was soft, but the coldness in his words cut through me.

The silence stretched on, and for a moment, I felt completely alone. The dark light of the figure seemed to engulf us, and what had once been a field of possibilities now appeared as an endless abyss.

I felt trapped, as if everything I had done, everything I had fought for, was useless. The Eduardo I had loved, the man with whom I had shared irreplaceable moments, had vanished. And now, here we were, in a place where time had no meaning, where fate seemed to have already marked us.

The figure moved closer to us, and the air grew heavier. It was as if everything happening now was nothing but a test, a test that had begun long before I could understand it.

"It's time to decide," the figure said, its voice reverberating in my ears. It was a declaration of destiny, one I could not ignore.

Decide. Decide what? Decide to stay with what was left of Eduardo? Or move on, accept that perhaps the love we had shared no longer had a place in this new world?

I looked at Eduardo once more. He was no longer the same. There was no "us." The connection we had had been broken, not by time, not by distance, but by something greater, something neither he nor I could understand. But despite everything, there was still something within me pushing me to fight for what remained of him, for what we once had.

But in the end, was it me who had lost him? Or was he the one who no longer remembered me?

The figure, now fully before us, extended its hand, not toward Eduardo, but toward me. It was the final call, the last chance.

"Decide. Or lose everything you once knew… or gain something you could never have imagined."

The decision was before me. Would I be able to let go of what I could no longer hold, or would I fight until the very end to recover what was slipping away?

The darkness enveloped me, but inside, there was a spark of determination.

I was not ready to give up yet.