My hands were steady as I held the scalpel above Sebastian Black's temple. Even knocked out cold, the guy looked like he'd stepped off a magazine cover. Dark hair perfectly styled, jaw sharp enough to cut glass, breathing slow and even. Rich people always looked peaceful when they slept. Must be nice having no real problems.
I was about to make him forget the love of his life.
"His vitals look good, Dr. Grey," my assistant Nina said from across the room. The machines around us beeped quietly, keeping track of every heartbeat. "Got his brain mapped out. Ready when you are."
I stared at the glowing screen floating above Sebastian's head. His brain looked like a blue constellation, with tiny red dots scattered throughout. Each dot was a memory I had to cut out. Memories of his dead wife. Memories that were eating him alive, according to his file.
That's my job. I'm Dr. Evira Grey, and I help people forget the things that hurt them.
Here in New London, 2029, memories work like everything else - you can buy them, sell them, or throw them away. The rich folks up in Memory Hills buy perfect childhoods and amazing first dates. The poor people down in Forgetting Valley sell their best memories just to keep the lights on.
Me? I work in this giant glass tower, ninety-three floors up, cutting bad memories out of rich people's heads. Usually it's simple stuff. Erase a messy divorce. Delete the memory of a business deal gone wrong. Help someone forget they ever loved the person who broke their heart.
But Sebastian Black wasn't like my other patients.
He was the most powerful man in New London. The guy who built the memory empire from nothing. He invented half the machines I used every day. And now he was lying on my table, paying me millions to cut his dead wife out of his brain completely.
"Starting the procedure," I said, moving the scalpel toward his skull. The blade hummed with blue electricity as it got close to his skin. "Going in now."
Should've been routine. I'd done this a thousand times before. But the second that scalpel touched Sebastian's temple, everything went sideways.
The screen started flickering like crazy.
"Nina, what the hell?" I said, not taking my eyes off the display. "Something's screwing with our connection."
"Everything looks normal from here, Doctor," Nina said, but I could hear the worry in her voice.
The screen flickered again, and suddenly I wasn't looking at brain scans anymore. I was watching a movie.
A woman was standing on some fancy yacht, laughing as ocean water splashed her face. She had silver hair that caught the sunlight and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. She was gorgeous in a way that made your chest tight. She spun around with her arms wide, like she was trying to hug the whole world.
"Stop it," I said.
"Doctor?"
"I said stop the damn procedure!"
But the memory kept playing. The woman turned toward whoever was filming, and I could see her face clearly. She had a tiny scar above her left eyebrow and a birthmark on her neck that looked like a little star. Her smile was huge and real, the kind that made you believe good things actually happened.
Then she talked.
"Sebastian, quit filming me," she laughed, and the sound was like music. "You're being ridiculous."
That voice froze my blood solid.
It was my voice.
The scalpel fell out of my hand and hit the floor with a clang. I stumbled backward, my whole body shaking. That woman in Sebastian's head had my voice. My laugh. My...
She had my face.
"Dr. Grey, you okay?" Nina asked, but her voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.
The memory changed, and now I was watching the same woman crying. Tears poured down her face as she banged on a glass door, trying to get out. She was screaming, but no sound came through. Her mouth moved frantically, and her eyes were wide with pure terror.
This woman who looked exactly like me was scared out of her mind.
Then I saw Sebastian appear in the memory. Younger, but still handsome. He was trying to reach her, but something was in his way. He was yelling too, his face twisted with panic and desperation.
The woman's hand slid down the glass, leaving a bloody streak. Her eyes rolled back, and she dropped like a stone.
She was dying.
I was watching myself die.
"No," I whispered, stumbling until I hit the wall. "No, no, no, this isn't real."
The memory shifted again. Sebastian was holding the woman's dead body, tears streaming down his face. He kept saying something over and over, but I could only catch pieces.
"Sorry... so sorry... come back..."
"Doctor Grey!" Nina's voice cut through my panic. "The patient's responding! His vitals are going crazy!"
I looked at Sebastian on the table. His eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving. He was talking in his sleep, saying words that made my heart stop beating.
"Evira," he whispered. My name. He was saying my name. "Don't leave me again. Please don't go."
My legs gave out and I slid down the wall to the floor. This was impossible. The woman in Sebastian's head couldn't be me. I'd never met this guy before today. I'd never been on a yacht. I'd never been married. I was single and always had been.
But that voice. That face. That name.
Evira.
"Doctor, should I keep going?" Nina asked, but she sounded scared now.
"No," I managed to croak out. "Stop everything. Close him up."
"But his memories—"
"Leave them alone!" I screamed, way louder than I meant to. "Don't touch anything!"
I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door, but Sebastian's voice made me freeze.
"Evira, my love," he mumbled, still out cold. "Why did you have to die? Why did you leave me?"
I burst through the doors and ran down the hallway like the building was on fire. My surgical gown flew behind me as I passed nurses and doctors who stared at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had.
I needed to get out. I needed to get away from Sebastian Black and his impossible memories.
I needed to figure out why a dead woman had my face.
The elevator took forever to reach the ground floor. My reflection stared back from the shiny steel doors. Silver hair, blue eyes, a tiny scar above my left eyebrow from when I fell off my bike at seven. And there on my neck, barely showing above my collar, was a birthmark shaped like a little star.
The same birthmark the dead woman had.
My phone buzzed. Text from a number I didn't know.
"Welcome home, my wife."
I stared at those words until they blurred. Someone was messing with me. Someone had hacked Sebastian's memories and stuck my face in them. Someone wanted to scare the hell out of me.
But as I walked out into the pouring rain, I couldn't shake this feeling that I was forgetting something huge. Something about yachts and glass doors and a man crying while he held my dead body.
Something about dying.
Rain soaked through my scrubs as I stood on the sidewalk, looking up at that massive glass tower. Somewhere up there, Sebastian Black was waking up, probably wondering why his surgery got cancelled. Probably wondering why he still remembered the woman he wanted to forget.
The woman who looked exactly like me.
I called a taxi, my hands still shaking like leaves. I needed to go home and think. I needed to figure out what the hell was happening to me. But while I waited for the car, one thought kept banging around in my head.
If Sebastian's dead wife looked exactly like me, then who was I?
And why couldn't I remember anything from before three years ago?
The rain soaked through my clothes as I stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the Crystal Tower. Somewhere up there, Sebastian Black was waking up from anesthesia, probably wondering why his surgery had been cancelled. Probably wondering why he still remembered the woman he wanted to forget.
The woman who looked exactly like me.
I pulled out my phone and called a taxi, my hands still shaking. I needed to go home and think. I needed to figure out what was happening to me. But as I waited for the car to arrive, one thought kept echoing in my mind.
If Sebastian's dead wife looked exactly like me, then who was I really?
And why couldn't I remember anything before three years ago?
A taxi pulled up and I jumped in without even looking at the driver. "Take me home," I said, giving him my address on Maple Street.
"Where's home exactly?" he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped cold. Where was home? I'd lived in that apartment for three years, but suddenly I couldn't remember picking it out. Couldn't remember signing papers or moving in or choosing the furniture.
I couldn't remember anything before I started working at that tower.
"Maple Street," I whispered, but it felt wrong saying it.
As we drove away, I spotted a black car following us. The windows were too dark to see inside, but something about it made my skin crawl. Like whoever was in there knew exactly who I was.
Even though I didn't.
Rain hammered the taxi windows as we drove through the city. New London looked weird somehow, like I was seeing it through someone else's eyes. The flashing signs for memory clinics, the billboards promising perfect lives, the people hurrying down sidewalks with their heads down - it all felt familiar and strange at the same time.
Like a dream you can't quite remember.
Or a nightmare you can't forget.
My phone buzzed again. Same unknown number.
"I've been waiting for you to remember."
I turned the phone off and squeezed my eyes shut, but all I could see was that woman on the yacht. That woman with my face and voice and birthmark. That woman who died in Sebastian Black's arms while he cried my name.
The taxi stopped outside my building. I paid and got out, but that black car was still there across the street. Waiting.
I ran up four flights of stairs, fumbling with my keys until I got the door open. But when I stepped inside my apartment, my blood turned to ice.
The walls were covered with pictures.
Wedding pictures.
Photos of me in a white dress, smiling next to Sebastian Black. Pictures of us cutting cake, dancing, kissing under falling flower petals. Pictures that should've been impossible because I'd never gotten married.
But there I was, frame after frame, looking happy and in love with a man I'd just met today.
I walked through my apartment like a zombie, staring at each photo. The woman in the pictures looked exactly like me, but she seemed different. Softer. More trusting. Like she believed the world was a good place.
Like she believed in love.
On my nightstand was a picture I'd never seen before. It showed me sleeping in Sebastian's arms, both of us looking peaceful. Someone had written on the back in handwriting I didn't recognize:
"Our first morning as husband and wife. I love you forever, E."
E for Evira.
But I'd never written those words.
I collapsed onto my bed, surrounded by proof of a life I couldn't remember living. A marriage that never happened. A love I'd never felt.
Or had I?
Something deep in my chest ached when I looked at Sebastian's face in those pictures. Something that felt like missing someone. Like grieving for something I'd never known I'd lost.
My phone rang, making me jump out of my skin. The caller ID showed a number I didn't know, but somehow I knew I had to pick up.
"Hello?" My voice came out like a whisper.
"Evira." The voice was deep and familiar, even though I'd only heard it mumbling in a drug-induced sleep.
Sebastian Black.
"I know you're confused," he said, and I could hear him crying. "I know this doesn't make any sense. But please don't run away again. We need to talk."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
"The pictures," he said softly. "You found the wedding pictures, didn't you?"
I looked around my apartment at all those photos covering every wall. "How do you know—"
"Because I put them there," Sebastian said. "Before every surgery. Every time I tried to forget you. I always put them back afterward, hoping maybe this time you'd remember too."
"Remember what?"
"Remember us. Remember our marriage. Remember how much we loved each other."
"But I was never married to you," I said, even though saying it felt like a lie.
"Yes, you were," Sebastian said, his voice breaking apart. "You were my wife. And then you died. And now you're back again, just like before, with no memory of who you really are."
The room started spinning. "That's impossible."
"Is it?" Sebastian asked. "Think about it, Evira. Think about your life before three years ago. Your childhood, your family, your friends. Can you remember any of it?"
I tried to think back, but there was nothing. Just emptiness where my past should've been.
"How many times?" I whispered.
"How many times what?"
"How many times have I died and come back?"
Sebastian didn't answer for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
"This is the fourth time."
The phone fell out of my hand and crashed to the floor. I stared at my reflection in the dark window - at a face that belonged to a dead woman. A woman who had been Sebastian Black's wife. A woman who had died four times and come back.
A woman who was me, but wasn't me.
A woman who was about to die for the fifth time.
Outside my window, that black car was still there.
Still waiting.