EMPTY BRAIN

CHAPTER 4

Pink was late again.

She didn't know how long she had been standing in front of her locker. Minutes? Maybe more. The hallway was quiet now, emptied of laughter and slamming doors. The warning bell had already rung at least she thought it had.

Her fingers hovered over the lock. She stared at the numbers.

18-7-24.

Was that right?

She closed her eyes, tried again. Nothing.

"Brain fart," she muttered. "Big deal."

But this wasn't the first time. Or the second.

Her planner once color-coded and perfect was now a mess of crossed-out dates and sticky notes with half-formed thoughts like:

> Math test Friday (I think?)

Ask Lily about... something?

She finally got the locker open and stared blankly at the contents. Books. A photo of her and Lily at the lake last summer. A half-eaten granola bar. It all looked like hers. But somehow, it felt like it belonged to someone else.

She shook it off and rushed to class.

"Pink Mora," said Ms. Rowan, peering over her glasses. "You're late."

"Sorry," Pink mumbled, sliding into her seat.

Lily leaned over from the next desk. "You okay?"

Pink gave a quick nod, but inside, her chest tightened. She couldn't remember the assignment. Or the topic. Or, weirdly, how she even got to school that morning.

Words on the board blurred. Names slipped from her mind mid-conversation. When called on, she stared blankly at her textbook, trying to connect dots that no longer existed.

Her thoughts weren't slow they were missing.

Like holes punched through her brain.

At lunch, she sat under the sycamore tree alone, scribbling notes in the margins of her journal.

 Sometimes I forget my own name for a second.

It comes back, but it feels like... someone else's name.

Is this stress? Am I sick? Am I losing it?

"Hey" Said a voice 

She looked up. A boy with dark eyes and a sketchbook sat across from her

Kian

"You dropped this earlier" He held out a crumpled flashcard. On it, her handwriting: 

Pink Mora. Age 15. Favorite color: green. Best friend: Lily. You are safe. You are real

Her throat tightened. She didn't even remember writing it.

Kian studied her." You don't remember dropping it, do you?

She shoot her head.

" Okay" he said folding the card gently and sliding it back to her. " Then maybe we should talk".

Pink didn't speak at first.

She just stared at the flashcard in her hand, the words written by her, but distant like they'd been sent from another version of herself.

Kian waited. He didn't fill the silence. He just sat there, sketchbook still open on his lap, like this was the most natural thing in the world: a girl forgetting her own name and a boy quietly witnessing it.

"How did you know it was mine?" she finally asked.

He pointed to the bottom corner of the card. In small letters, almost too faint to see, it read:

 If found, return to Pink Mora (even if she forgets who that is).

Pink felt her heart fold in on itself. She had known. Somewhere, deep inside, she had known this would keep happening.

"I've seen this before," Kian said. "In my sister."

Pink looked up. "Your sister?"

"She had these… gaps. Whole days gone. Random phrases she'd write on mirrors or books. Sometimes she forgot who I was." His voice cracked slightly. "She was fifteen too."

"What happened to her?" Pink asked, scared of the answer.

"She got worse before she got better," Kian said. "But the thing is she never gave up trying to understand what was happening. That's how I knew to talk to you. You don't look lost. You look like you're fighting it."

Pink swallowed hard. "I don't know what I'm fighting."

Kian gave a half-smile. "Then maybe we can figure it out together."

After school, Pink went home and tore apart her room.

She found more flashcards some hidden in the pockets of jackets, some tucked inside books.

 You love Lily. Trust her.

Mom works late Thursdays. Don't wait up.

Don't trust the woman with red glasses.

That last one made her stop cold.

She didn't even know anyone with red glasses.

Or... had she forgotten?

Pink took the stack of flashcards and arranged them on the floor like a puzzle. As she stared at them, a foggy image began to take shape in her mind.

A white room. A clipboard. A voice saying, "We're just going to try something new."

And pain. Not sharp. Just... wrong.

Like her brain had been unplugged.

At 11:42 that night, her phone buzzed.

Kian:

 Are you awake?

Pink:

Yeah.

Kian:

Check your mailbox.

She threw on a hoodie, crept down the stairs, and opened the metal door of the mailbox. Inside was a folded piece of cardboard.

It was a photo. Grainy. Black and white. It showed a girl sitting in a medical chair, wires taped to her temples. Her eyes were open, but vacant.

Pink turned it over. One word was scrawled in red ink:

 Nova.

Pink stared at the name for a long time.

Nova.

The photo trembled in her hand, though the night was still. Her mailbox stood silent, holding secrets it had no business keeping. She turned the image over again, as if the girl might suddenly blink, or move, or explain herself.

But Nova stayed still. Stuck in some sterile, forgotten room. Wires on her temples. Eyes open. Mind… elsewhere.

Pink's own brain throbbed like it was trying to remember something that wasn't hers.

The next morning, Pink cornered Kian before first period.

"Where did you get the photo?"

He didn't flinch. "My sister drew her once. Said she saw her in a dream. Then later, she found that picture in her locker. Just like I did."

Pink's spine prickled. "Wait what?"

"Same handwriting. Same name on the back. Nova." Kian's eyes were serious. "I think she's the reason you and my sister both went through this. I think she's the beginning."

Pink sat with that word. Beginning. She'd been so afraid of what was happening that she never considered there might be a before.

"Do you think Nova's still alive?" she asked.

"I think she left a trail," Kian said. "And we're supposed to follow it."

They spent the next week hunting.

Library archives. School files. Closed-down records that shouldn't have been accessible but Kian was a hacker in disguise. Pink never asked how he got past the firewalls. She didn't want to know.

They found a single article: a student named Nova Alarie. Disappeared three years ago from a now-defunct experimental learning program called Project Echo. Funded quietly. Buried quickly.

There were no reports of her being found.

But there were rumors. Whispers from staff members long gone. A girl who started forgetting... then stopped being.

Pink touched the screen, tracing Nova's photo.

She looked familiar.

Not in the face but in the emptiness. That look in Nova's eyes? Pink had seen it before.

In the mirror.

One night, Pink stayed up until 3 a.m. piecing together her flashcards, timelines, dreams, and fragments of memory. There were patterns. Places she didn't recognize, voices she couldn't place, smells that triggered sudden panic.

Her mother found her asleep on the floor the next morning, surrounded by notes.

"You're scaring me," her mother whispered, brushing hair from her forehead. "You're forgetting things. But you're also remembering things you shouldn't."

Pink blinked at her. "What do you mean shouldn't?"

But her mother only shook her head and backed out of the room.

Pink's world shifted sideways.

Even home wasn't safe anymore.

At school, Lily finally snapped.

"You've been avoiding me for weeks, Pink. What's going on?"

Pink hesitated. "I think someone's been inside my head."

Lily stepped back, her expression unreadable.

"I'm serious," Pink said. "There was a girl. Nova. Something happened to her. And now it's happening to me."

Lily studied her like someone trying to read the last sentence of a torn letter.

Then she whispered, "I remember that name."

Pink's breath caught.

"You what?"

"I don't know how," Lily said slowly, "but I remember her too."

Pink followed the trail Nova left behind. Secret rooms. Redacted files. Photos of herself she didn't remember taking. And always, the echo of a name... Nova calling from the cracks in her memory.

Eventually, Pink found her.

Hidden in the far wing of a closed down clinic outside town, barely conscious but alive. Nova's mind was like a fractured mirror shiny pieces, broken and scattered.

"I knew you'd find me," Nova whispered. "I left pieces of you in me. So you'd remember."

And Pink did remember. Not everything. But enough.

Enough to bring her back.

After rescuing Nova, Pink doesn't go back to being the girl she once was. She grows into someone new braver, scarred, but whole in a way she'd never been before.

Kian becomes her anchor, her steady hand when the world still spins. But their bond is more than romantic it's a quiet, fierce friendship built on trust and truth. They never say "forever," but they say "I'm here," and that's enough.

Nova lives, but not as a symbol as a person. Her mind slowly mends, piece by fragile piece. Some days, she forgets her name. Some days, she laughs. Pink visits her often. They sit in silence, or paint, or write things down just in case they forget again.

They don't erase the past.

They record it.

Together, the three of them start a journal. Not just to remember but to remind anyone like them: you are not alone.

In the final pages, Pink writes:

"Even if your brain feels empty, your heart isn't. And your story isn't over yet."