Quick footsteps on a marble floor. Rapid breaths. A heart pounding violently.
Cairn rushed through the winding corridors of the lower dungeons, guided by an inexplicable instinct and borrowed memories from the fallen Keeper of Oblivion behind him. The world around him was entirely new, yet there was a vague sense of familiarity, as though he had walked here before, in another life.
[Because you have walked here, before your memories were erased. This part of the world was once a chapter in your story.]
He ignored the voice of the shadow in his head, focusing on escape. The alarm blared louder, and the sound of many footsteps drew closer behind him.
He turned right into a side passage, finding himself in a wide room with a low ceiling, filled with rows of metal cabinets. At the far wall stood a massive iron door, firmly locked.
"A dead end," he whispered to himself.
[No, a memory vault. Look.]
He approached one of the cabinets, noticing a small plaque bearing a number and letter. Behind a glass panel, there was something resembling a small crystal, glowing with a faint blue light.
"What are these things?"
[Preserved memories. Stolen from their owners, stored here in the archive.]
A moment of silence passed before the shadow continued:
[Do you understand now? This is what the Keepers do. They extract memories, store them, and leave their owners as hollow shells.]
Cairn exhaled shakily as he wandered between the cabinets. Thousands of crystals, thousands of memories, thousands of stolen lives.
"Why do they do this?"
[Because knowledge is power. And forgetting is the ultimate punishment. A person without memories, without a past, is nothing more than a blank slate, ready to be rewritten.]
The sound of a nearby siren cut through his thoughts. They were closing in.
He looked again at the locked exit. The door was massive, tightly sealed with a complex electronic lock. But Cairn, armed with the stolen skills of the Keeper, knew exactly how to open it. His fingers moved over the keypad with an uncanny confidence, as if they had performed this task a thousand times before.
The door opened with a soft click, revealing a staircase leading upward.
Before stepping through, he hesitated for a moment at one of the cabinets. Acting on an impulse he couldn't explain, he reached out and took one of the crystals. It was warm in his hand, pulsing like a tiny heart.
[What are you doing?]
"I don't know," he answered honestly, slipping the crystal into his pocket.
He climbed the stairs quickly, the sounds of the Keepers breaking into the archive echoing behind him.
Each step upward brought him closer to a brighter, stranger world. After several minutes of climbing, he reached another door. He pushed it open gently and found himself in...
The outside.
For a moment, he was blinded by the intensity of the light. A real sky... but it wasn't the blue sky his fragmented memories suggested it should be. Instead, it was a strange orange hue, streaked with glowing clouds.
He stood atop a tall building, overlooking an expansive city stretching to the horizon. Towering white buildings aligned in precise geometric patterns. Clean streets, empty except for silent, driverless vehicles. Above, floating platforms glided between the buildings, carrying people dressed in identical white attire.
"What kind of world is this?" Cairn whispered in awe.
[The Third City of Remembrance. One of the seven cities of identity governed by the Keepers.]
He looked around and realized he was on the roof of a relatively low building, surrounded by towering skyscrapers. A few meters away, a narrow bridge connected the building to another nearby.
Noises from behind him. The door he had exited began to creak open.
He ran toward the bridge, crossing it quickly. The wind was cold and strong at this height, whipping against his face and tousling his jet-black hair, a detail he only now noticed.
As he advanced across the bridge, it became clear that the adjacent building was partially abandoned. Its windows were dusty, its facade crumbling—a stark contrast to the gleaming structures surrounding it.
[Go inside. It will serve as a temporary refuge.]
He crossed the bridge and entered the building through a broken door. Inside, it was dark and cold, filled with dust and remnants of old furniture. It seemed to have been an office long abandoned.
He sat behind an overturned desk, leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath and gather his thoughts.
He pulled the crystal from his pocket, gazing at its faint blue glow. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
[Memories stolen. Memories stored. Memories can be reclaimed. Try it.]
He hesitated for a moment, then gently pressed the crystal. It responded with a brighter glow, and suddenly, it began to dissolve in his hand, transforming into a luminous liquid that trickled through his fingers before evaporating.
In that instant, a flood of images and sounds overwhelmed his mind.
A young woman sitting in a sunlit garden... a musical performance with instruments he had never seen before... laughter, kisses, sorrow, despair... all the emotions and memories of another person.
My name is Selene Noor. I am twenty-eight years old. I was a musician in the Orchestra of Remembrance, before...
The memory abruptly stopped, as if a reel had been cut. But something had shifted within him. New knowledge. New emotions. A new skill.
He raised his hand and made a simple motion in the air, as if playing a stringed instrument. He felt as though he could now perform any musical piece he could imagine.
"I've taken her skill..." he whispered in astonishment.
[And a part of her identity. That's how our stolen memories function.]
"We're stealing people's souls."
[No. We're reclaiming what was taken from them. This woman, Selene, had her memory stolen and stored here. You simply retrieved it. Now, a part of her lives in you, instead of being locked away in a forgotten cabinet.]
He wasn't sure if this was a sufficient moral justification, but there was no time for philosophical contemplation. The sound of small aircraft grew louder outside. The Keepers were hunting him.
He stood, scanning the room for another exit. He noticed the elevator on the far side of the room. It wouldn't work in an abandoned building, but next to it was an emergency stairwell.
He opened its door and peered down. Darkness stretched below, and cold air wafted upward.
[Some forgotten places lie beneath the cities. Those are where we can hide.]
He began descending, step by step, into the darkness. With each floor he passed, the light faded further, and the air grew colder and damper. It felt as though the stairwell was leading him deep into the earth, into a hidden, subterranean world.
After what felt like hours, the stairs finally ended at a rusted metal door. Cairn pushed it open with effort, finding himself in a wide tunnel dimly lit by sparse, faint lamps.
[The lower layer. The city beneath the city.]
The tunnel stretched in both directions, branching into numerous side passages. Its walls were covered in strange graffiti and colorful, abstract images. The air carried an odd scent—a mix of dampness, incense, and metal.
"Where exactly are we?"
[Under the Keepers' control, but beyond their direct surveillance. Here live the outcasts and forgotten, those who escaped complete erasure.]
Cairn walked slowly, following the main tunnel. He passed by people with peculiar appearances: an old man with half a metallic face, a woman dressed in clothing made of paper scraps inscribed with incomprehensible words, two masked boys hurrying past.
All of them glanced at him with curiosity and caution, but none stopped him or questioned his identity. [No one here asks about the past. Everyone knows that memories are either too precious or too painful to be shared.]
He stopped at an intersection where the tunnel widened into a small square, at the center of which stood a dry fountain. At its edge sat a young woman, hunched over a notebook, drawing with intense focus.
There was something strange about her. While the rest of the forgotten appeared somehow distorted, incomplete, she seemed... whole. Her wavy, dark red hair, her pale skin, her simple yet elegant attire: a blue jacket over a white shirt and black trousers.
As he approached, she lifted her head, her eyes meeting his. They were the color of golden honey, but her gaze was sharp, piercing, as if she could see something behind his eyes.
"Finally," she said simply. "I've been waiting for you to arrive."
Cairn was taken aback. "Waiting for me? But I don't know you."
She smiled a mysterious smile as she closed her notebook. "I'm Eliana Nym. And you are a strange being—half of you is lost, and the other half is as old as time itself."
Cairn froze in place, feeling the shadow within him stir, awaken, as if something about her had piqued its interest.
[This woman... she can see us. Both of us.]
"How do you know about me?" Cairn asked, a mix of caution and curiosity in his voice.
Eliana gestured to her notebook. "I see memories as threads, the way you see lines on your hand. I draw them. And I've seen your threads for some time... or rather, the absence of them."
She stood and stepped closer to him. "You are unique. A person without memories, carrying within you an entity that holds the memories of the entire world."
Cairn stared at her in disbelief. "You can see it? The shadow inside me?"
She nodded. "Not see it exactly, but its trace. Like seeing the shadow of a tree on the ground without seeing the tree itself."
[This is rare. She's one of the Remembered. A group they thought they had eradicated.]
"The Remembered?" Cairn repeated aloud.
"Yes," Eliana replied. "We are those who resist the laws of forgetting. We are born with a natural ability to see and recall memories, even those that have been erased."
She glanced around cautiously, then motioned for him to follow. "This isn't a safe place to talk. Come with me."
Cairn hesitated for a moment, wondering if he could trust this stranger.
[Follow her. She's the key to escaping the city.]
He followed Eliana through a maze of narrow tunnels, some so low they had to crawl. They passed abandoned places and others inhabited by strange-looking people speaking mixed dialects. Cairn noticed that Eliana seemed to know her way well and that some greeted her with clear respect.
After what felt like an hour, they reached the end of a blocked tunnel. But Eliana pushed aside part of the wall, which rotated on a hidden axis, revealing a small room dimly lit by faint blue lamps.
The room was simple: a small bed in one corner, a modest bookshelf filled with books, a table covered in sketches and papers, and two chairs. The walls were adorned with drawings, all in Eliana's distinctive style, depicting faces, places, and memories.
"Your hideout?" Cairn asked cautiously as he stepped inside.
"One of several," she replied, closing the secret door behind them. "When you're one of the Remembered, you always need an escape plan."
She gestured for him to sit and took the seat opposite him. For a moment, she simply observed him with her golden eyes, as if trying to read something hidden on his face.
"Alright," she said finally. "Let's start from the beginning. What's the last thing you remember before waking up in the cell?"
Cairn shook his head. "Nothing. A blank page. It's like I was born in that cell."
"Yet you have a name."
"A name I chose... or he chose."
[We chose it together.]
Eliana smiled, as if she could hear the shadow's voice too. "The Eternal Shadow. That's what it's called in the ancient texts."
Cairn flinched. "You know about it?"
"I know a little. The remaining texts are scarce, and the knowledge is dangerous. What I do know..." She paused, as if carefully choosing her words. "Is that the Eternal Shadow is an ancient entity, from a time before the era of forgetting. It was a witness, perhaps even a participant, in the creation of this system."
[She knows more than she's revealing.]
"And now it resides within me," Cairn sighed. "Why?"
Eliana shrugged. "That's a question I don't have an answer to. Or at least, I'm not sure of what I know."
She stood, walked to the bookshelf, and pulled out an old book with a faded leather cover. Opening it to a specific page, she handed it to him.
The page contained a drawing: the figure of a human standing upright, with a shadow behind them that stretched far larger, bearing massive wings and horns.
"In the beginning, there was the shadow," Eliana read softly. "The bearer of memories, traversing worlds. The covenant was absolute, and the word was law."
The shadow inside Cairn was unusually silent, as if listening intently.
"Then came the forgetting, and memory was divided," Eliana continued. "And the shadow fell into a deep slumber, waiting for the day it would rise again, bearing the power of memory and its eternal blade."
She closed the book slowly. "It's just a myth, of course. Or so it's supposed to be. Until I saw you."
Cairn felt a strange sensation, as if those words had awakened something deep within his lost memory. Fleeting images, muffled sounds, buried emotions.
"I don't understand any of this," he finally said. "I don't know who I am, why I'm here, or what the Keepers want from me—or this shadow."
"The Keepers fear you," Eliana said simply, returning the book to its place. "You represent everything they dread: an individual capable of defying the system of forgetting."
She glanced at his hand. "And now, after you've stolen the memories of one of their agents, you're even more wanted. They'll send more after you. Not just ordinary Keepers, but the Pivotal Ones."
"Pivotal Ones?"
"The elite of the Keepers. They can erase a person entirely—not just from memory, but from existence."
Cairn fell silent, processing the gravity of her words. Then he noticed something on the wall behind Eliana. It was a drawing of a face... his face.
"How..." he began, pointing to the drawing.
Eliana smiled. "I told you, I was waiting for you. I saw you in the scattered memories in the air, in the echoes of the collective dream. I drew you weeks ago."
[She's more deeply connected than you think. She doesn't just see memories; she can alter them.]
"I can help," Eliana said suddenly. "Help you escape the city, find answers. But there's a price."
"A price?" Cairn raised an eyebrow.
"I want to go with you. Wherever you're going, no matter how dangerous."
"Why would you risk yourself for someone you don't even know?"
Eliana glanced at the drawing of him, then back at him. "Because I'm searching for the same answers. And because I'm tired of hiding. And because there's something connecting us... something I don't fully understand, but I can feel it."
[We can trust her. We need her.]
Cairn hesitated for a moment, then extended his hand. "Deal."
Eliana shook his hand, and for a moment, Cairn felt a faint tingling where their skin touched, as if a subtle current had passed between them.
"Now," she said, releasing his hand, "we need to leave here tonight. The Keepers will intensify their search in the lower layers soon." She went to a small cabinet and pulled out a backpack, quickly filling it: clothes, canned food, water, the old leather-bound book, and a set of strange tools.
"And where are we going?" Cairn asked her.
"To Eidolith. The city of the forgotten."
[Eidolith...] the shadow whispered, and for the first time, its voice sounded sorrowful, filled with melancholy. [Our old city.]