What if every seven days, you became a stranger to your own life?

Elira wakes up in new lives every week—different names, unfamiliar places, yet the same haunting questions. With memories that don’t belong to her and a face she can’t forget, one man stands at the center of it all: Kael.

He claims to be her anchor—the keeper of her lost past. But as Elira uncovers fragments of truth, she begins to question everything: Kael’s intentions, her friends’ loyalty, and the very nature of her identity.

In a world where memory resets and nothing is what it seems, Elira must choose: reclaim who she was… or risk everything to become who she was meant to be.

"Tethered"

She smiled over breakfast like nothing had happened, listening to him talk about mundane things—coffee brands, traffic noise, a new scar on his arm. But her mind was elsewhere.

Because someone—some version of her—left a warning in that drawer.

And that version knew more than this one ever could.

The text from Christine still lingered on her phone:

"Meet me where the first reset happened."

And apparently… so did Christine.

Kael left in the afternoon, giving some excuse about syncing the backup logs. Elira waited fifteen minutes, then rummaged through his desk.

But under a false bottom in one drawer, she found it:

A black flash drive. No label. Dusty. Hidden.

She stared at it like it might bite.

The wind whispered in broken syllables through rusted rails. Christine wore a hoodie, oversized and washed out. Her face was pale—but her eyes locked onto Elira's with strange familiarity.

"You remember anything yet?" Christine asked.

Elira didn't answer. "Why did you lie?"

"I didn't want you looking too early."

Christine glanced around. "Kael's hiding more than memories. He's hiding people."

Elira's pulse jumped. "What does that mean?"

Christine pulled something from her pocket. A polaroid.

Elira's hand trembled as she took it.

It was her. Younger, hair tied back. Laughing beside another girl.

Written on the back: "Find me before he does."

Back in the motel, Elira locked herself in the bathroom and plugged the flash drive into her burner laptop.

But one file played automatically:

Her face appeared. Tired. Older. Bruised.

"If you're watching this… I didn't make it."

"Kael isn't lying. But he's not telling the truth either."

"They reset us for a reason. We were close to unlocking something bigger. We almost broke out."

"There's a name you have to remember: Valen. Find him."

Elira stared at the screen, mind spinning.

And for the first time, a piece of her wanted to remember everything, even if it killed her.

Chapter 11 – The Things She Left Herself