The fluorescent lights of Northwood High buzzed, a soundtrack to my Monday morning misery. History class. Mr. Abernathy droned on about the War of 1812, a war I vaguely remembered learning about last year. Vaguely. That was the problem lately – everything felt vague, like looking at the world through a smudged lens.
I glanced at Maya, my best friend since kindergarten. She was usually doodling in her notebook, intricate patterns of swirling galaxies and impossible creatures. Today, her page was blank. She stared straight ahead, her brow furrowed.
"Maya?" I whispered.
She didn't react.
I reached out and gently nudged her arm. "Maya, you okay?"
Her head snapped towards me, her eyes wide and slightly unfocused. "Kazuki? What? Sorry, I… I don't know, I just blanked for a second."
"You seemed out of it for longer than a second," I mumbled, a knot forming in my stomach. It was just a feeling, a prickling unease, but it was persistent.
Then, my phone buzzed. Another stupid game ad, probably. I pulled it out, ready to dismiss it, but stopped. There, on my home screen, was an app I definitely didn't download. A single, stylized eye stared back at me, ringed with concentric circles that pulsed with a faint, blue light. Below it, the name: "Mnemosyne."
I hesitated, then tapped the icon. The screen flashed white for a moment, and then a single line of text appeared:
Echoes Detected: System Initializing...
"What the…" I muttered, accidentally saying it aloud.
Mr. Abernathy glared at me. "Mr. Ren! Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
"Uh, no sir," I mumbled, hastily shoving my phone into my pocket.
The Mnemosyne app hummed against my thigh, a silent vibration that sent shivers down my spine. The feeling of unease intensified, morphing into something closer to dread.
The rest of the day was a blur. Every so often, Maya would drift off, her eyes losing focus, only to snap back with a confused apology. Other students seemed… distracted, disconnected. The world felt… thinner.
That night, I sat on my bed, staring at the Mnemosyne app. It hadn't said anything since the initial message. I tapped the icon again.
Echoes Detected: System Initializing...
Then, a new line appeared:
Subject 42: Assigned.
Subject 42? Assigned? What the heck?
I tried to uninstall the app, but the icon wouldn't budge. I tried restarting my phone, but it was still there. It was like it was glued to my digital life.
Frustrated, I threw my phone onto the bed. I needed to clear my head. I decided to go for a walk.
Our neighborhood was usually quiet on weeknights. The familiar glow of streetlights and the distant hum of traffic usually brought me comfort. But tonight, something was off.
Mrs. Davison's rose bushes, normally overflowing with blooms, were gone. Just empty patches of dirt. And the bench in the park where Maya and I had carved our initials years ago? Vanished. No trace, no memory of it ever existing.
Panic seized me. This wasn't normal. This wasn't just forgetfulness.
As I walked back home, I noticed that the numbers on some of the houses were fading, cracking like old paint. And then, above Mrs. Henderson's porch, the sign that read "Henderson" was slowly, almost imperceptibly, dissolving into nothing.
That's when I realized what was happening. It wasn't just memories that were disappearing. It was the things connected to those memories. The things that anchored them to reality.
Reality was unraveling.