I woke to the sound of rain, only—it wasn't falling.
It rose.
Droplets drifted upward from puddles and broken bottles, lifting gently into the gray morning sky like little lost souls. The world had turned inside out again. Another rewind, maybe. Or maybe time was just breaking, slowly, where I had touched it.
I stood in the alley behind our building. My breath steamed. The city was still. Nobody shouting, no jeepneys rattling by, no dog barking from behind iron gates. Just the soft upward patter of rain and the distant whine of something I couldn't name.
My slippers were soaked.
The pen pulsed faintly in my hoodie pocket, warm even through the wet fabric.
A shadow moved.
Not ahead. Above.
I looked up and saw her.
She stood on the crumbling balcony two floors above—barefoot, wearing my old school uniform. Hair braided the way my mother used to do it for me. Her hands clutched the rails tightly, knuckles white.
I recognized her face before I could deny it.
It was me.
Not a reflection. Not a dream.
The version of me from before everything went wrong—before I stopped trying in class, before the arguments and silences and fake smiles and pills I hid beneath my tongue.
She didn't see me.
She just stood there, lips moving, whispering something to the sky. The rain curved around her like a glass shell.
I took one step back, and the pen glowed brighter.
She turned her head. Slowly. Eyes locking with mine. And then she began to cry.
Tears that rose instead of falling.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Every part of me wanted to run, to scream, to forget this—again. But the rain had already chosen to remember.
And somewhere behind me, someone began to hum an old childhood lullaby.
I woke to birdsong.
Too soft to be real. Too sweet to belong to this city.
The world was hazy with that early gray-blue light—the one that touches everything like a whisper. My back ached. The bench beneath me was stiff and cold, the metal biting through my jacket. My legs were curled up to my chest like I'd been trying to make myself small enough to disappear.
I looked around.
The playground was empty. No floating rain. No girl on the balcony. No strange old woman humming lullabies. Just wrappers stuck in the sandbox and a swing creaking in the wind.
I must've fallen asleep.
Maybe the fairy never came.
Maybe I imagined everything.
But my hand hurt.
When I opened my palm, the pen was still there—warm, pulsing faintly, like something alive. And etched faintly into the plastic barrel were the same three words I swore weren't there before:
"DO YOU REMEMBER?"
I shoved it back in my hoodie and stood. My limbs protested, stiff from cold and sleep. I brushed gravel from my skirt, heart heavy in my throat. The air still smelled like rust and wet plastic, like childhood after it sours.
Home was ten blocks away, maybe twelve. I started walking.
Each step felt heavier than the last. The sun hadn't fully risen, but a dull light bled across the rooftops, washing the world in pale exhaustion.
At the corner near the bakery, I passed a dog asleep under a fruit cart. Its ribs showed. I crouched, reached into my pocket for the snack I had half eaten last night. The dog sniffed my fingers but didn't wake.
Everything felt quieter than it should.
Like the world was holding its breath.
When I reached the street where we lived, I stopped.
From the outside, our building looked the same—peeling paint, broken mailbox, electric wires tangled like spiderwebs. But something was wrong.
Our window—third from the top—was open.
Mom never opened the window.
I climbed the stairs slowly. My knees ached. When I reached our door, I didn't knock. Just listened.
No voices.
No TV.
No music.
I turned the knob. It wasn't locked.
The apartment smelled faintly of beer, banana ketchup, and something burnt. The light from the kitchen buzzed overhead, flickering faintly. I stepped inside.
And froze.
The living room was empty.
No mom. No slippers by the door. No cigarette ash in the tray.
Only one thing was out of place.
On the dining table, next to last night's dishes, was a letter. Folded in half, no envelope.
My name was written on it in blue ink.
The same pen I held in my pocket.
I hadn't written it.
I hadn't been here.
My fingers trembled as I reached for it. The paper felt dry, old, like it had been waiting for me longer than I'd been gone.
I unfolded it.
It wasn't a letter.
It was a list.
I unfolded the page slowly.
The ink had bled faintly, like someone had written it in the rain. But the handwriting was familiar—looped, messy, half-rushed.
My own.
But I had no memory of writing it.
At the top, no greeting. No explanation. Just a title in all caps:
"WHAT I MUST NOT FORGET"
Below it, numbered in uneven strokes:
The bruise wasn't your fault.
The fairy has three faces. Don't trust the smiling one.
The playground is not safe after 2:17 a.m.
Dad didn't leave—he was erased.
Your bedroom door is a gate. Keep it locked when the wind howls.
If you hear her sing, cover your ears. She's wearing your face.
Time doesn't heal. It rots.
There is a crack in the mirror—count to five before looking.
Don't rewind today. No matter what happens. Don't.
My breath caught at the final line, scrawled hastily across the bottom margin, smaller than the rest:
You already died once. Don't make it twice.
I stared at the list.
I didn't know whether to scream or cry, or laugh.
Instead, I sat down on the floor, knees against my chest.
I should have felt fear, but what flooded me was grief.
Because every line on that list didn't just warn me.
It knew me.
It knew the dark corners of my memory. The parts I'd scrubbed out with excuses. The faces I stopped drawing. The hallway I never walked down at night. The door I never opened, even when I heard it whisper.
And that final line—
I already died once.
I closed my eyes. My fingers curled tightly around the pen in my hoodie pocket.
Somewhere deep in my chest, a door creaked open.
And I remembered the scent of burning plastic.
A flash of blue light.
And screaming. My own.
But it wasn't a full memory. Just a shard. A taste.
Enough to know the list wasn't lying.
I folded the list with shaking hands.
Somewhere outside, the city had begun to stir—vendors shouting, tricycles rumbling, dogs barking at nothing. Life was moving forward.
But I wasn't.
I sat there on the kitchen floor, list in one hand, pen in the other. Light poured through the open window and touched the table where last night's beer bottle still stood.
Then—
A soft knock on the bedroom door.
Once.
Twice.
Then silence.
No footsteps. No voice. Just the knock.
My heart stopped.
I hadn't told anyone I was home.
I hadn't locked the bedroom.
And I live alone now.
I rose slowly.
Behind that door was my old life, the version of me I buried, the truth I rewound to escape.
Another knock. This time softer. Like nails instead of knuckles.
The pen in my pocket flared, red this time.
And from behind the door, I heard my voice, fragile and breathless:
"Let me out."