What's Left of Me
Lira sat on the floor of her room, the old journal open across her knees. The desk lamp buzzed faintly in the silence, casting a weak circle of yellow over the pages.
She wasn't reading anymore.
She was staring.
There, in the corner of the last page, something had changed.
One of the pages she swore was there… was gone.
Not torn clean, but ripped messy, fast. Fibers still stuck to the seam.
It wasn't just missing. It had been removed.
She flipped the journal back, then forward again. Her fingers trembled. The missing page had left behind a sentence faint, written in lighter ink, almost like someone had scribbled it in fear.
"You have to be faster than the system."
Faster… than what?
She blinked slowly.
A strange calm settled into her chest. Not relief. Not fear.
Just the weight of realization.
She was losing pieces of herself... and not even noticing when they were gone.
---
She arrived at school before the halls were fully lit. The sky outside remained gray, and everything in the building hummed with the strange, low quiet of electricity warming up.
The door to the records room was cracked open.
She shouldn't have gone in.
But her feet moved anyway.
Inside, the air was dry and still. Filing cabinets lined the walls, and folders with peeling labels sat in leaning stacks across an old metal desk.
She pulled a folder marked 2023–2024 and flipped through the class roster.
Nadia.
Ben.
Rafi.
Reva.
Leon.
Her name wasn't there.
Her chest grew tight. She tried another folder.
An older one.
2022–2023.
There, near the middle:
Lira Alviana
Student ID: 0111
Status: ACTIVE
She exhaled shakily.
But underneath her name, in red ink:
Record compromised – sync failure
Date of failure: January 11
Eleven again.
That number.
Always that number.
She pulled out her phone and tried to snap a photo. The screen turned black. No click. No storage.
Then a message appeared:
FILE UNAVAILABLE. DATA HAS BEEN MIGRATED TO A STABLE VERSION.
Her blood ran cold.
Stable?
As in... she wasn't?
---
She stepped out of the records room and stopped cold.
Someone stood at the end of the hallway, just outside the light.
Not a teacher. Not a janitor.
Leon.
He looked calm. Collected. But his eyes held something sharp. Like he'd seen her before this moment ever happened.
"You're not the first," he said.
Lira didn't move. "What do you mean?"
"I've seen you before. In a dream. In this hallway. But... you weren't you."
He took a slow step forward.
"You were standing right here, holding a journal. You said something about 'memories that don't belong to you'."
Lira's lips parted.
"Are you sure it was me?"
Leon nodded. "Same face. Same eyes. But… calmer. More sure."
He studied her like someone staring at a page that once had writing but had been erased.
"Why do you remember me?" she whispered.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe because I was never fully in the system."
She said nothing.
But her mind was screaming.
Because if he remembered… then maybe some part of her was still real.
And if she wasn't?
Then maybe Leon was the last thread still holding her in place.
***
"Alina," Leon said softly, almost to himself.
Then he looked up and met her eyes.
"That was your name. In the dream."
The name hit Lira like a slow echo. Familiar but buried.
Her breath caught.
Not because she recognized it... but because some part of her had already been waiting to hear it.
Leon seemed to sense her hesitation.
"You looked older," he said, voice calm. "Or maybe not older… just more tired. Like someone who knew the system better than it knew itself."
She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped.
What was she even supposed to say?
"I've never told anyone that name," she whispered.
"I know," he said. "That's why it scares me too."
---
Class started. Lira sat at her desk, though it felt more like hiding than participating. The teacher took attendance, calling names one by one.
"Nadia."
"Present."
"Ben."
"Here."
"Rafi."
"Here."
Pause.
Lira waited for her name.
It never came.
No one looked confused. No one looked back at her.
She raised her hand.
"I'm… here," she said, unsure if she was allowed to speak.
The teacher glanced at her. Her expression stayed blank, like she was trying to remember something… and failed.
Then she moved on.
"Leon."
"Present."
Lira slowly lowered her hand.
Something in her stomach folded in on itself. Like the edges of her existence were being pinched closed.
No resistance.
Just quiet removal.
---
During break, she sat on the back stairs where no one ever went. The sunlight didn't reach here. Only wind. Only silence.
She opened the journal again.
There, on a fresh page, someone had written something.
Not her.
She knew her own handwriting, and this wasn't it. This was thinner, a little slanted, written quickly.
"If you're reading this, then I've already been removed. But the system hasn't decided yet if you'll replace me… or join me."
She traced the letters with her fingers. The ink felt dry but recent.
There was no signature. Just two initials in the corner:
A. L.
Her throat tightened.
Alina.
Not just a name in a dream.
Not just a whisper in someone else's voice.
A version of her.
Maybe the first.
Maybe the real one.
---
The phone in her pocket lit up by itself.
Not a message.
Just a flashing screen:
SYNC REQUEST DENIED
ALINA_A01 ALREADY IMPRINTED IN ACTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Imprinted?
Where?
She looked up, heart racing.
And at the end of the hallway, she saw her.
Not a reflection.
Not a memory.
A girl walking past Reva and the others. Talking. Laughing.
Same hair. Same bag. Same uniform.
And on her wrist... a tiny scar.
The one Lira got from falling off her bike in third grade.
But Lira was here.
So who was that?
She stared.
And from a distance, Reva turned to the girl and said:
"Lira, did you bring your sketchbook?"
The girl smiled and held up her bag. "Yeah. I always do."
Lira didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
She wasn't watching someone take her place.
She was watching someone already living in it.
***
Reva didn't notice her at first.
Lira stood near the end of the hallway, half-hidden behind the door to the art room, watching... watching Reva laugh with someone who shared her face, her voice, her memories.
But not her.
Not anymore.
Then Reva looked up. Just for a second. Their eyes met.
Lira expected confusion. Or guilt.
But Reva simply tilted her head, like she was trying to recall a dream she had already let go of.
Later, during lunch, Reva found her sitting alone behind the old science lab.
"Hey," she said softly.
Lira looked up. Her throat dry.
"I keep seeing you in different places," Reva continued. "But it doesn't always feel like you."
Lira's chest tightened. "What do you mean?"
Reva sat beside her. She looked tired. Not physically, but as if her mind had been walking too many parallel roads.
"Sometimes I remember you sitting beside me in class, telling me stories about your dad's weird cooking experiments. But then I also remember…" Reva paused. "You showing me how to pick the right hallway camera to avoid detention."
Lira frowned. "I never told you that."
Reva blinked. "Exactly."
There was a long silence between them.
Then Reva whispered, "It feels like I have two memories of you. Both strong. Both real. But one of them… doesn't fit anymore."
Lira hesitated. "Which one are you trying to keep?"
Reva looked away.
"I'm not trying," she said quietly. "My mind just… decided."
Lira swallowed the lump in her throat.
"And?" she asked, voice barely audible.
"I remember the other one more," Reva said. "The one who smiles wider. The one who knows which vending machines still work. The one who never had to ask if she belonged."
Lira closed her eyes.
It wasn't jealousy.
It wasn't anger.
It was grief.
But not for a person.
For a place.
For a version of herself that was being replaced, not because she failed... but because someone else fit better.
---
She went to the library, hiding in the farthest corner.
The journal lay on her lap, and for the first time, she wasn't sure if she wanted to open it.
But she did.
And she found another note.
Not new.
But one she hadn't noticed before.
Written faintly in the corner of a page filled with scribbles and lists:
"Don't prove you're real. That's the system's game. Just survive long enough that someone remembers you louder."
She stared at the words.
They didn't feel hopeful.
They felt like strategy.
Like instructions left behind by someone who had already lost.
---
Leon appeared again, silent as always.
He held an old book, thick with dust, and placed it in front of her.
"I think this belongs to you," he said.
She opened it.
No title. No cover.
Just names.
Crossed out. Highlighted. Sorted.
Not a student log.
Something colder.
Ben.
Nadia.
Rafi.
Lira.03.
Alina.00.
Alina.A.
Some were marked with a check. Others with a strike.
Beside one of them, a note in different ink:
"Response: unstable. Social integration failed. Emotional volatility: high. Recommendation: transfer to Alina.00 (passive but adaptive)."
Lira stared at it for a long time.
Leon sat beside her without saying a word.
Then, finally, he whispered, "Maybe this isn't about who was real."
She turned her head slowly.
"Maybe it's about who stayed in the memories of others… longest."
***
That night, the house was too quiet.
Lira unlocked the front door and stepped inside like a stranger entering someone else's home. Everything looked familiar, the table, the bookshelves, the framed photos on the wall... but something was wrong.
Or maybe too right.
Too neat. Too… complete.
She toed off her shoes at the entryway and noticed a pair of sneakers she didn't recognize. Same size as hers. Same style.
But not hers.
Her stomach twisted.
She moved slowly into the living room. Her mother sat on the couch, holding a picture frame, smiling to herself.
"Hey, sweetie," she said without looking up.
Lira approached the frame cautiously.
It was a photo.
Of her. Or… no.
Of someone who looked like her. Standing beside Reva in front of their school. Holding a certificate. Grinning wide.
But Lira had never taken that photo. She'd never won that award. She hadn't even been at school that day.
"That's not me," she said, her voice tight.
Her mother looked up with a gentle frown. "Of course it is. You always forget the good days."
"No, Mom," Lira said firmly. "That isn't me."
Her mother stared at her for a moment longer, the smile fading into confusion... then into something worse.
Pity.
"You've been a little different lately," she said softly. "But that's okay. Change is normal."
Lira took the frame and looked at it closely. The face in the photo was brighter, calmer. Confident. The opposite of how she felt now.
The opposite of how she remembered ever being.
---
Alone in her room, she shut the door and leaned against it like she was holding something out.
Her phone buzzed once on the desk.
No notifications. No messages.
Then the screen flickered.
The camera didn't turn on. There was no reflection.
Just a slow transition into darkness.
Then…
A face.
Her face.
But different.
Older. Paler. Tears clinging to her cheeks. A silent, motionless cry frozen behind the screen.
Lira backed away.
The image blinked once, then faded. Replaced by glowing text:
YOU REMAINED
BECAUSE OTHERS SURRENDERED
THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU WORTHY
She stared at it.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't blink.
---
She opened the journal again, searching for anything... anything that might explain what was happening.
One page had changed.
Or maybe it had always been like this, and she just hadn't been ready to see it.
It read:
"You are not being erased.
You are being overwritten.
The system doesn't delete,
It rewrites history until it favors someone else."
Lira swallowed hard.
The phone buzzed again.
A new message this time.
No sender.
Just four words.
"You are the storage."
---
Storage?
For what?
She didn't get the chance to answer.
The phone screen lit up again... like a mirror.
But what appeared wasn't her.
It was another girl.
Slightly younger. Firmer eyes. Hair tied differently.
And then… the girl moved her lips.
Lira couldn't hear the voice, but she read the word perfectly.
"Return me."
***
Lira didn't sleep that night.
She stayed curled on the floor beside her bed, knees to her chest, the journal on one side, her phone on the other. Neither of them made another sound or flash.
But something else had started to.
Her own thoughts weren't quiet anymore.
They repeated things she didn't remember thinking.
Names she didn't say. Memories she didn't make.
It was like someone had opened a window inside her mind and the wind was bringing in someone else's life.
---
Morning came, but the sun didn't feel like it reached her skin. Everything looked distant. Or maybe she was the one being pushed further away.
She walked to school, unsure why.
No one noticed her on the sidewalk. No one made room when she passed. Even when someone brushed against her shoulder, they didn't turn back.
She felt like a shadow bleeding off the side of a photograph.
---
In class, there was a girl sitting in her usual seat.
She didn't flinch when Lira entered. Didn't even glance.
Just laughed at something Reva whispered in her ear.
The girl had her bag. Her voice. Her habits. Even the nervous way she played with her pen, except now it wasn't nervous. It was natural.
Lira sat in the corner.
The teacher didn't look at her.
When attendance was called, the girl answered to her name.
And the teacher said, "Present."
---
Lira left the classroom before the bell.
She wandered the halls until she ended up in a place she hadn't visited in years... behind the stage in the auditorium. Dusty props and rusted lights littered the back.
It was quiet.
It was empty.
So she opened the journal again.
One page... just one... had changed.
She hadn't written it. She was sure of that.
"If you're still here, it means they've made their choice.
They picked the version they could love.
Not the one who remembered too much."
Her hand shook as she closed the book.
She whispered, "Then what am I still doing here?"
The phone buzzed.
One more time.
No message.
No name.
Just a glowing word:
"PROXY."
Then, a line beneath it:
"You are no longer the target.
You are the container."
Lira gripped the phone tightly, her voice cracking.
"For who?"
No answer.
Until the screen flickered... once... twice...
And showed a face.
Her face.
But not just another copy.
This one was smiling.
And her lips moved in perfect sync with Lira's own breath, as if she already knew the rhythm of her body.
"I'm almost ready," the face said soundlessly.
Then the screen went black.
And Lira felt, for the first time,
like her body wasn't entirely her own anymore.
***