Rain washed the city in rippling reflections, neon bending across puddles like broken memories. Tonight, the world felt just tilted enough for Kael to notice what others didn't: the streetlight flicker that lingered a breath too long, the unfamiliar hum under the pavement, names slipping from conversations as if they never belonged to anyone.

Kael stood alone under an alley canopy, watching the crowd pass. Others moved with purpose and desire; he had none. His coat was soaked, fabric clinging to sharp shoulders. A stranger among strangers.

He tried to recall what he had done yesterday, but nothing came to mind, neither a face nor a place, nor even an emotion.

Just a blank space in his mind, smooth and cold, like polished stone.

He tested his memory again, this time harder. A spark of pain flared behind his eyes, and images fluttered, half-formed: a corridor of light, a hand on his shoulder, someone whispering “Don't forget.”

And then the images shattered, dissolving into dust.

Kael pressed a hand to his temple. "Not again…

He had woken up like this six days ago, in a rented room he didn't remember booking, with a keycard he didn't remember taking, and a reflection that felt like an actor wearing his face. He told himself it was amnesia, trauma, a neurological glitch.

But each night it was the same:

More memories vanished.

He wasn't forgetting; he was being erased.

A sudden, sharp sizzling sound snapped him out of his thoughts. Above the street, the billboard began to flicker violently, glitching through dozens of images at impossible speed. Advertisements, faces, landscapes… and then—

A figure, tall, cloaked. Eyes were like molten glass. Its presence felt wrong in a way Kael couldn't quite put into words.

The figure raised its head, and the world seemed to exhale.

A chill spiked through Kael.

Then the billboard went back to normal.

Nobody else had reacted.

“How did I—” He paused. His throat felt tight, as if the memory tried to dissolve before it formed. “Who was that?”

He didn’t know.

He only felt one thing:

The figure on the screen had seen him back.

A sudden buzzing vibrated in his pocket. Kael pulled out his cell phone-an old model he didn't recall buying, scratched but functional. A single message flashed across the screen.

DO NOT TRUST YOUR MEMORIES AS THEY ARE NOT YOURS.

His pulse quickened.

Before he could answer, a shape materialized through the rain-a young woman stepping out from behind the shadows of a closed café. Her face was pale from lack of sleep, her hair pulled back into a messy tie. And her eyes, without a hint of doubt, locked onto his.

“You're late,” she said softly. “I thought he took you already.”

Kael stared. “Do I… know you?”

Her expression broke for a moment-not surprised, but devastated, like she had feared this answer.

“He really did it.” Her voice shook. “He wiped you.

“Who did this to me?” Kael demanded.

She took a step closer, lowering her voice. “His name changes. His form changes. His world changes. But you've met him before. You always do.”

Kael felt the ground shift beneath him.

"Tell me his name."

The woman hesitated. Then whispered:

“…Vearin.”

The air around them warped subtly, like heat rising off metal. Kael felt the name strike something buried deep inside him. A surge of light. A corridor of fractured mirrors. Someone reaching for him through the void.

But the memory slipped away instantly, like it wasn't meant to be touched.

Kael staggered slightly. “Why can’t I remember?”

"Because he doesn't want you to," she said softly. "You were getting close. Too close. Thus, he needs you to be erased."

Lightning flashed across the horizon, illuminating the city's skyline: towering concrete shapes that swallowed the sky, threads of electric veins crawling between them. The storm felt alive, listening.

"Who are you?" Kael asked.

Her lips parted as if to answer, but her eyes widened in sudden terror.

She seized his arm.

“Kael—RUN.”

Something behind him shifted the air with inhuman precision. Kael turned—and the alley bent. Not physically, but visually, like reality folded inward. A ripple of distortion flickered, forming a humanoid outline.

Eyes gleamed through the distortion. Cold, Unblinking, Calculating.

The same eyes from the billboard. Kael's breath froze. The woman yanked him forward, dragging him into the storm-soaked street. As they ran, something awoke inside Kael, something root-deep and ancient and achingly familiar. A voice whispering through the cracks in his mind: You cannot escape what you once were. But Kael didn’t understand. Not yet. All he knew… was that someone named Vearin had stolen his past. And he wanted it back.