They’re Using My Memories to Become Real
Chapter 9: They're Using My Memories to Become Real
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🧠 1 — False Flashbacks
Ren sat on the rooftop, hands trembling, eyes wide.
He remembered something that had never happened.
A birthday.
Rain.
Tsuki laughing beside him.
Candles flickering on a strawberry cake.
But that wasn't right.
Aika had been there.
Not Tsuki.
Except now—Tsuki was in the photo.
The photo that had always been in his wallet.
His heart pounded. He flipped open the image again.
> "Happy 17th, Ren!"
– Love, Tsuki
His handwriting was on the back.
But he'd never written it.
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📹 2 — Memory Infection Detected
That night, Ren received a strange file on his phone.
No sender. Just a video titled:
> "Do You Still Know What's Real?"
He tapped play.
It showed his classroom.
Students. Laughing. Normal.
Except the blackboard read:
> ERASED TEST SUBJECT: REN ARAKAWA
CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT: MEMORY CONVERSION COMPLETE
The camera panned across faces.
People he didn't recognize.
People with half-faces.
People with his voice.
The screen cut to static.
Then a line appeared:
> "You're not just remembering them.
You're rewriting yourself."
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🌑 3 — The Girl in the Mirror Smiles Back
In the hallway mirror at school, Ren finally saw something.
Not his reflection.
A girl.
She looked like Aika, but… wrong.
Eyes pitch black. Skin like static. A smile like she'd never stopped smiling.
"Do you remember me yet?" she asked, tilting her head. "I was your first."
"My first what?" he asked.
"Your first accident.
The first one the world forced you to forget."
She pressed her palm to the mirror.
Blood began leaking from the cracks.
"I didn't go quietly," she whispered.
Then—
She vanished.
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🕸️ 4 — The Tall One Speaks
That evening, Ren couldn't sleep.
The apartment was too quiet.
Until it wasn't.
A heavy knock on his door.
He opened it.
No one there.
Until he looked down.
A shadow moved across the floor without a source.
"Who are you?" Ren whispered.
The shadow lifted.
Formed into a tall figure with no face.
But its presence was immense.
"You remember too much," it said. "And so I have form."
Ren stepped back.
"You're not one of the students."
"No. I am what exists between memory and reality. A consequence of your obsession."
Then the shadow stepped into the apartment.
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🗂️ 5 — Aika's Last Warning
Ren ran to the window. Aika was waiting outside. Again. Always.
He opened it.
"They're hijacking your memories," she said. "One by one. If you remember them too clearly, they overwrite reality. They become."
"But how do I stop? How do I choose what to forget?"
"You can't."
She looked away.
"But I can."
"What?"
"I've been collecting your memories, Ren. Editing them. Erasing some before they stick too deep. That's why I always disappear."
Her voice cracked.
> "But the cost is me."
Ren stepped closer. "No."
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
> "You can either remember me…
or remember yourself."
Then she vanished.
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🌀 6 — The Spiral Classroom
The next day, the classroom changed.
No longer desks and chalkboards.
The walls twisted like they were spiraling inward.
Endless versions of his classmates sat at looping angles.
Tsuki appeared in three places at once.
The teacher's voice sounded like a record skipping.
"Open to page never. Begin remembering now."
Ren clutched his head.
He saw flashes of:
A girl falling in front of a train
A birthday where no one came
A hospital bed with a boy whispering "thank you"
His mother staring through him
The classroom laughed in stereo.
"You're the reason they exist now," Tsuki said.
"You made us real by believing.
Now we're staying."
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🔥 7 — Burn the Anchor
Back home, Ren tore open every photo, every note, every token of memory.
He couldn't tell what was real anymore.
Some things seemed older than him.
One photo showed a girl smiling on a rooftop with the Tokyo skyline behind her. Caption:
> "Aika. Class of 1991."
Another photo:
> "Ren Arakawa. Missing since 2003."
He wasn't even born in 2003.
Was he?
He screamed.
The walls echoed back:
> "You're already gone, Ren."
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⛓️ 8 — Aika's Return
That night, as the world glitched—
Everything paused.
Time stopped mid-breath.
And then—
She walked in through the window.
Not Aika the ghost.
Aika the person.
Whole. Breathing. Real.
"I stole enough memories to buy time," she said, trembling. "But the others know. They're coming."
"Then we run," Ren said.
She smiled faintly.
"No. We remember. Together."
She reached out.
Ren took her hand.
Their surroundings began to crack—
But not from forgetting.
From holding on.
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🕯️ End of Chapter 9
Next: Chapter 10 — "The World Will Erase One of Us by Morning"