When Names Collide

June 7

Location: Veritus – Sector 7

Status: Second stage, unstable.

Object found: Pendant, still warm.

Feeling: Pulled. Watched. Uneasy clarity.

—

The wound isn't visible. But it's there.

I wake to the metallic taste of rust sitting thick on my tongue. There's a weight pressing behind my temples — like my mind spent the night grinding itself dull. My fingers twitch against something cold.

The journal's already open beside me. Pages curled, corners worn. The ink from yesterday hasn't bled, but something else has shifted.

The pendant has moved.

It was on the nightstand last night. I'm sure of it — I remember its cold edge against my knuckle before I slept. Now, it rests directly on top of the journal.

Not placed. Dropped.

Like someone stood over me while I slept and let it fall.

I stare at it without touching.

Some things you pick up by instinct. Others… you learn to wait.

The pendant doesn't look different. Still dull silver. Still cracked across the center like a fault line. But it hums with a weight that wasn't there before — or maybe I've just started noticing.

Outside, Veritus doesn't pretend it's morning. The light that scrapes through the window isn't warm or golden. It's gray and sour, like a city too tired to try anymore. Even the shadows it casts look uninterested.

I move slow. Ritual matters now more than ever.

Scarf first — wrapped twice. Coat after. Pockets checked. Chalk, string, tape, broken lighter, half-empty vial of ink. The city doesn't run on fuel, it runs on memory — and most of it spills when you're not looking.

I check the lock. Still jammed the way I left it. The mirror beside the door still refuses to reflect me properly. My outline is there, but the face is… slippery. Blurred at the edges. As if memory has started to give up on even that.

I whisper a name under my breath, but it doesn't sound like mine. So I stop.

At noon, I drift out into Sector 7. Veritus groans quietly beneath itself, each building leaning just a little too far, each window either shut too tight or cracked just enough to feel like a warning.

The people here are sleepwalkers. Shadows in constant motion. I pass them like fog brushing fog. They don't see me. That's not new. But today, it feels sharper. Not invisibility — irrelevance. Like I was never supposed to be here in the first place.

By the time I'm back at my flat, the pendant burns cold in my pocket, and the silence in the room presses closer than it did this morning.

Then…

Three soft knocks.

Measured. Precise. Not loud.

I freeze. I wait.

When I open the door, there's no one there — just a single piece of folded paper tucked neatly into the frame.

No stamp. No name.

I pick it up carefully. There's a faint scent on the paper — lavender, maybe. Or something that wants to be remembered.

I unfold it.

"Don't trust the Keeper.

Find me.

Old tram depot. 8 PM."

The handwriting is neat. Too neat. Balanced in that way someone writes when they're trying not to leave themselves behind.

I read it once. Then again.

And again.

By the fourth time, I'm already reaching for my coat.

—

The tram depot lives in the forgotten ribs of Veritus — buried between broken sectors and alleys that loop in on themselves like bad dreams.

Once, it might have been grand — domed glass, steel arches, echoes of arrivals and departures. Now, it's all rust and breathless quiet. The tracks are choked with ivy and regret. Some nights, they say, you can still hear the trains. But nothing's run here in years.

I arrive early.

Time:- 7:43

The southern corridor is half-collapsed. I wait behind a cracked column, one hand brushing the chalk sigil carved there weeks ago. A half-moon with a line through it.

Danger passed. But not forgotten.

The pendant sits heavy in my pocket. My fingers keep brushing it — not on purpose, not entirely.

I'm not expecting anyone to show.

But she does. A female figure.

Exactly at 8:00.

Boots first. Steady steps. Then the coat — oversized, fraying at the sleeves. Hood drawn up. Fog swallowing the edges of her form.

She walks with the kind of calm people usually fake. But hers feels earned. Or maybe paid for.

She stops ten feet away.

Neither of us speaks.

Then:

"You kept the pendant."

My hand closes around it instinctively.

"Didn't know it was yours."

-"It isn't.

But it brought you here. That's what matters." She said.

There's no heat in her voice. But there's no cold either. Just weariness. Like someone who's carried too many memories that didn't belong to her.

"You know the Keeper ?" I ask.

A nod.

-"You trust him?"

Another pause.

Then: "Do you? "

I don't answer.

The tram depot breathes between us — old metal shifting somewhere in the bones of the building, the wind dragging the past through broken windows.

"You wrote something once," she says.

Her voice changes — softer, like stepping into a memory she didn't want to find.

-"A Torn paper. Left near the Archives. I was cataloging discarded remnants. I found your note tucked between two manuals on resonance bleed."

She recites the words, barely a whisper:-

"If you're reading this, remember me.

I can't anymore."

Something cracks in my chest.

I don't remember writing it. But it sounds like me.

"I didn't sign it," I say.

-"You did " she replies, stepping forward, reaching into her coat.

She holds up the scrap. The ink's smudged, but not gone.

— "Oveileon."

The name lands like a ripple through still water.

I don't know how to feel about it. It sounds familiar in a way that hurts.

"Is that me?" I ask.

-"You said it was," she answers. "Back then."

I repeat it, barely above a breath. "Oveileon."

The syllables feel awkward. Heavy. But they settle.

"Not a name you just make up," she says. "You carried it once. You buried it after. But it's still yours."

I want to ask how she knows.

Instead, I ask, "Who are you?"

She doesn't flinch. But her hood shifts slightly.

"I'm the one who remembered," she says. "When everyone else forgot."

And then, quietly: "And I'm not the only one who's looking for you."

I step forward. "What do you mean?"

She holds my gaze.

" You're not just unraveling. You're pulling threads others have buried."

I pause. "Then, The Keeper lied?"

She shrugs.

"Lied. Withheld. Shaped the story. Same difference."

My chest tightens.

"All this time… I trusted him because he was the only one left."

"He still is," -she says. "But ask yourself — why did he keep your name from you?"

She starts walking backward, into the mist, the shadows folding around her like she belongs to them.

"You want answers?" she calls softly. "Stop asking the wrong questions."

"Wait. Your name—"

She smiles faintly. "Ask me next time."

Then she vanishes into the depot's hollow bones.

—

That night, I don't sleep.

I sit near the window, scarf still around my neck. The pendant rests in my hand. The journal lies open, the pen hovering.

My fingers are shaking again.

I write slowly.

June 7 – Addendum

Name recovered:

"Oveileon"

Meaning: Unknown.

Voice: Not quite mine, but close.

She remembered. I didn't.

The Keeper… hiding things.

Am I unraveling? Or being rewound?

_____

Outside, Veritus presses its weight against the sky.

Inside, I whisper the name once more.

Oveileon.

This time, it doesn't feel like a stranger.

Not quite home yet either.

But… closer.