District Fourteen was supposed to be clean.
That's what the Council called it: cleared, compliant, settled.
A place where the Rewrite had taken root so deeply, even memory had forgotten how to struggle.
But as Velora stepped through the checkpoint gate, she felt it in her chest:
This place was not clean.
It was quiet.
And quiet meant memory was hiding.
The source was a small brick structure tucked behind the government education hall—unlisted, unwatched, and full of color.
Inside, a girl painted faces onto the crumbling walls, humming softly.
Not music. Not a melody.
Something closer to grief, unspoken.
Her name was Maelin. Seventeen. No Rewrite resistance flags. No psychological alerts. On paper, she didn't matter.
Velora watched her from the doorway. The girl didn't look up. Her hands moved like she was remembering with each brushstroke—carving identity into pigment before it could vanish again.
"You know him," Maelin said softly.
Velora didn't answer.
The painting in front of her wasn't complete—but it didn't need to be.
Sharp cheekbones. Shadowed eyes. The Hollow Star hovering faintly behind his left shoulder.
It was Rael.
Not as he was remembered in Archive records.
But as Velora remembered him—quiet, dangerous, burdened.
"You've never met him," Velora said.
"I don't think I have to," Maelin replied. "He speaks in my sleep. He shows me faces I shouldn't know. And I paint them so I don't forget them again."
Velora stepped further into the room. The scent of paint stung her nose. Real pigment—oil, ash, powdered minerals. Not synth-ink.
"These faces," Velora said, gesturing to the other walls. "You recognize them?"
"No," Maelin said. "But they remember me."
The walls were full of them.
Dozens of portraits, all distinct—some vivid, others unfinished.
A woman with burning eyes and hair like sea glass.
A child with a coin in each hand.
A man with stitches where a mouth should be.
A soldier with no face, only a name etched below him: TESSA.
Velora stopped cold.
She approached the painting slowly. It wasn't exact. But the posture, the expression—she knew this person.
Tessa. Her name hadn't been spoken aloud in years.
Velora's voice was steady. "Who told you her name?"
Maelin paused. "I didn't know it had one. The name came to me while I was painting."
Velora exhaled like she'd been holding something in for days.
Alastor arrived not long after, silent as ever.
"She's restoring the erased," Velora said before he could speak.
Alastor scanned the room. His eyes lingered on the Tessa portrait longer than he meant to.
"This is impossible."
"No," Velora replied. "It's the Rewrite breaking down."
He crossed the room and stopped in front of a larger piece—a split portrait. Two versions of the same face. One half serene. The other half screaming.
He reached out and touched it.
His hand jerked back.
"I felt something," he said. "Recognition… but wrong."
"Maybe it wasn't yours," Velora murmured.
Maelin turned toward him.
"You're the one who watched it happen," she said. "You stood still while the names burned."
Alastor went quiet.
Velora knelt beside Maelin.
"Why do you paint them?"
"So they don't disappear."
"Do they talk to you?"
"No. Not while I'm awake. But I see them when I dream."
Maelin pointed toward the upper corner of the wall, where a new shape was beginning to form—a star with eight jagged points, uneven and twisting inward.
The Hollow Star.
"He said if I finished it, they'd start remembering," Maelin whispered. "Even the ones who forgot by choice."
Velora's pulse slowed.
"He?"
Maelin nodded.
"The man with the coin."
Back at the Archive, Velora and Alastor reviewed Maelin's file.
Zero family connections. No work history. No official schooling.
She'd been archived for "observation" five years ago—then forgotten.
The final note in the file read:
"Contain, do not correct. Possible cognitive bleed from early-cycle Rewrite drift. Recommend silent observation."
"They knew about her," Velora said.
"They knew and they left her open," Alastor added. "Like a pressure valve."
"Or a test."
Velora leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
"She painted Tessa."
"She painted a god," Alastor said softly. "Twice."
Velora lit a candle and stared at the flame until her eyes burned.
The coin was back on the table.
But this time, there was something carved into its underside. She'd never seen a mark there before.
It wasn't a word.
It was a symbol.
A door.
A line down the center. A crescent inside it. Eight points around it.
The Hollow Star again—but not broken.
Open.
She blinked, and it was gone.
In her sleep, she dreamed of the wall in Maelin's house.
All the faces she'd seen there—smiling now. Watching.
And Rael stood among them.
No longer bleeding. No longer burning.
Just waiting.
On her window, drawn in faint ash, someone had written:
"We are not forgotten. We are remembering you."