THE THINGS I FORGOT WERE NEVER GONE

I didn't go to school the next day.

I told Mom I had a stomachache, which wasn't completely a lie,my stomach was in knots, but not for the reasons she thought. She kissed my forehead, whispered, "Get some rest, baby," and left with Angela and Francisca.

The moment the front door clicked shut, the silence in the house felt heavier than ever. Like it knew something too.

I sat by my window for hours, waiting. Watching.

But no one came.

No footsteps on the roof.

No shadow in the backyard.

No girl in the street with cold eyes and stolen memories.

Only the wind.

Only the silence.

By noon, I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled out the letters again , laid them across my bed in the order I found them. One by one, I read them out loud, as if saying the words would unlock something inside me.

"I missed you."

"You still don't remember."

"Three days left."

Why me?

I wasn't anyone. Just a girl with average grades, two little sisters, and a mom who worked too hard. My life had been boring and predictable , until she appeared.

And now?

Now every second felt like it carried a weight I couldn't see but couldn't ignore either. And worse… something inside me was starting to wake up.

It began with a dream.

Not that night, but when I dozed off late afternoon , head on the desk, sunlight warm on my back. The kind of half-sleep that blurs the line between real and not.

I was standing in the middle of a forest.

Fog curling at my feet.

And I wasn't alone.

She was there.

The girl.

But this time… she wasn't watching me. She was crying.

Tears streaked her pale cheeks. Her lips were moving, whispering something I couldn't hear. I stepped closer, but the more I moved, the further away she got like the trees swallowed her every time I blinked.

Finally, just before she vanished completely, I heard it.

A single word.

"Why?"

I woke up gasping.

The house was still quiet. The clock read 5:34 p.m., and the sky was already slipping into that bruised-purple evening again. I ran to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, tried to shake the dream off.

But the feeling stuck.

That word stuck.

Why.

It wasn't just a question. It was an accusation.

That night, I couldn't sleep again.

I sat on the floor with a flashlight, rereading the letters, digging through old journals, photo albums, anything that might give me a clue and that's when I found something.

A picture.

Tucked in the back of a notebook from two years ago, hidden between the pages like I'd been trying to forget it.

The photo was faded, bent at the corner taken at some camp I barely remembered going to. A group of us stood by a lake, arms over each other's shoulders, all smiles.

And there she was.

In the back.

Barely visible.

Her.

I stared at her face. My heart thudded so hard I thought it would crack my ribs. She looked the same ,maybe younger , but the eyes were unmistakable.

And suddenly, like floodgates opening, it hit me.

A name.

Lena.

I don't know where it came from the name just jumped into my mouth like it had been waiting there all along. I whispered it once.

Then again.

Lena.

And when I said it, I felt something break open in my chest.

Something I'd buried.

On purpose.

But it wasn't enough. I couldn't see it clearly yet just fragments.

A scream.

A dark lake.

Someone falling.

Blood on my hands that wasn't mine.

My phone buzzed suddenly, snapping me back.

A message from a blocked number.

No name. Just four words:

"Now you remember me."

My breath caught.

And then another message came through immediately after:

"Day one is over."

I dropped the phone.

Because this wasn't just a game.

Someone knew what I forgot.

And now they wanted me to pay for it.