Day 0 // Memory Status: Unlinked // Caste ID: Presens // Subject; Eyla
There is a page on her desk.
Nothing around it, looks touched, no wind, no movement. Just her desk lamp casting soft shadows, her untouched tea still warm, and one thin sheet of paper that wasn't there before...
She didn't write it.
She's almost sure of that.
But the ink is hers.
The handwriting is hers... And the name at the top - Somehow...is definitely hers...
"You will die in four days, Elya."
Not a scream.
Not a threat.
Just a sentence. Clean. Inevitable. like fact already filed.
She doesn't breathe for a few seconds.
Doesn't move either...
Its written in her handwriting, almost mechanically neat, like she'd taken on it. Like she meant it.
Her eyes skim down.
Bottom right corner: her own signature.
Perfect. Slanted. Ink still fresh.
She hadn't written this.
She knows she hadn't.
...Had she?
Her hands are cold, She flips the page. The back is blank - no smear. no sign of printing. No trace of anyone else having touched it.
She lifts it, half expecting it to melt or hiss or do something surreal.
Nothing. Just a page. A little too perfect.
Maybe this is a prank,
Maybe it's someone trying to mess with her
Maybe it's just... stress.
Right?
Her mind flickers though possibilities like a dying screen.
Stress hallucination. Sleep disorder. Previs joke. Subconcious art therapy?
She rips the page in half, just to feel control again.
Tears it again. Again...
Eight pieces. Into the trash.
She exhales.
Back to normal.
But as she moves to her bed, something itches at her thoughts.
The handwriting was hers.
Every curl. Every ink stroke.
She knows how she loops her "y" in Elya - even under pressure.
That wasn't forged.
What if you wrote something and forgot?
What if you didn't forgot... but the memory hasn't happened yet?
She shuts off the light before her brain gets louder...
The Next Morning...
The classes feels foggy.
Light feels wrong. The sun hangs a little too low for a morning, a little too bright for comfort. The colors outside seems washed out.
Elya stares at her coffee cup for a bit too long in the university courtyard. Doesn't remember ordering it.
Presens don't glitch, she reminds herself.
Time flows normally.
Everything is fine.
Philosophy class...
Professor Kalen is talking about temporal mirrors.
"If time is a reflection", he says, "what does it reflect when no one is watching it?"
He glances at her mid-sentence. Like he knows. Like he sees something fractured behind her eyes.
Her notebooks is open. Blank.
She writes a single word down in the margin:
"Lie?"
Kalen continues.
She doesn't hear the rest...
That Night...
03:17 a.m.
She wakes up from nothing.
No dream. Just... stillness. A kind of silence that feels programmed.
The lamp flickers once.
The air feels thick.
And then - The sound.
Whrrrk.
That soft drag of paper sliding across a flat surface.
She sits up.
Her desk is in the same spot.
Her tea is still half-finished.
The trash bin... is empty.
On the desk:
The page.
Flat. Smooth.
No rips.
No Signs of ever being torn.
"You will die in four days, Elya."
Same handwriting.
Same exact sentence.
But this time, something is different.
She leans in, palms sweaty, breath caught between fear and fury...
Bottom right corner: Her signature. Again.
But just underneath it... a new marking:
#001
Elya stares at it.
The number pulses in her mind like a countdown.
One page
One day?
One Memory
She doesn't know what it means - But she knows it's only just begun.