"Some people draw what they see. She draws what's trying not to be remembered."
Orin didn't return to the store.
The thought of walking back into aisle seven—of seeing blank eyes and hollow names—made his stomach turn. The world he thought he'd known was warping, folding inward. The streets felt thinner, and the sky felt too near. Every moment in his apartment echoed like a chamber someone else had lived in.
So he walked.
No destination, no plan—just motion. Something primal in his body told him to move. That staying still was how people got rewritten.
He wandered until the buildings aged.
The glossy synthetic panels faded into concrete. Ads stopped auto-refreshing. Drones no longer flew overhead. Street signs flickered with decay. The digital veins of the city thinned until only the Old Quarter remained—half-abandoned and nearly erased.
This was where forgotten things gathered.
Places the System hadn't yet rewritten. Or maybe couldn't. Or maybe just… left alone because no one was looking.
The Old Quarter was more real than the rest of Bray Hollow, and that terrified him.
Cracks ran through the pavement like veins of a dying organism. Vines had begun reclaiming walls. Birds chirped here—actual birds, not synthetic sound loops. Their presence made the silence heavier, not lighter.
And then—he saw her.
At first, just a shape.
Perched at the edge of a dry fountain carved with symbols no one read anymore, sketchbook balanced across her lap, a pencil dancing in rhythmic strokes. She was wrapped in layers—scarf, vest, fingerless gloves patched with thread. Her boots were scuffed, one lace untied. Hair black, jagged, and choppy, like she'd cut it herself with a dull blade and didn't care.
She wasn't just drawing—she was remembering.
Orin knew it instantly, the way you know a dream is important even before you understand why.
He stepped closer, cautious. The gravel crunched beneath his shoes. Still, she didn't look up.
He reached the edge of the fountain and paused. Words formed in his throat but stayed there, uncertain.
Until he saw the sketch.
It was him.
Down to the hollow under his cheekbone. The tiny notch in his left eyebrow. Even the frayed seam on his sleeve from where he snagged it three nights ago on a shelf hook.
"You're drawing me," he said, voice quiet and hoarse.
She didn't look up. "I know."
"But you haven't looked at me."
"I don't have to," she replied. Her tone wasn't dismissive—it was just truth.
Finally, she lifted her gaze.
Her eyes were pale—grey-green like sea glass left too long in salt. Not glowing. Not unnatural. But far too clear. There was no System-glaze, no artificial haze of sync. These were the eyes of someone still unwritten.
"You were in my dream last night," she said.
The words made his stomach drop.
"What?"
"You stood in front of a mirror. But your reflection wasn't yours. It was older. Scarred. Covered in static. It kept whispering a name. Kaito."
The name hit like static behind his eyes.
He staggered back a step.
"You remember that?"
Junie raised an eyebrow. "You do too."
Orin looked around. The buildings were silent. No watchers. No drones. Just brick and leaf and silence.
"I—I don't know what's happening," he admitted. "I think I triggered something. I found a stone, under the store. I touched it. And now I—" He broke off, searching her face.
"I feel like I don't belong to myself anymore," he finished quietly.
Junie nodded. "Good. That means you haven't been rewritten yet."
She closed her sketchbook and set the pencil behind her ear. Then she stood—not tall, but steady. Grounded like someone who'd learned how to anchor herself in windstorms.
"Come on," she said.
"Where?"
"There's a place I stay. Safer than here. For now."
She turned and walked, not waiting to see if he'd follow.
He did.
Her hideout was inside an old train station, decommissioned and long sealed off from the public. The entrances were blocked with collapsed signs and debris—unless you knew which pieces were false.
She led him down a broken stairwell into the lower terminal, which still had traces of the old world—peeling mosaic tiles, faded signs that read "Outbound Line 9" and "Terminal Memory Hub (Under Reconstruction)."
She knelt beside a rusted control panel, twisted a lever, and pulled free a concealed handle. A floor panel shifted open, revealing a gap just large enough to squeeze through.
Orin hesitated.
"Trust me," she said.
He did.
Inside, it was warmer than he expected. Lanterns made from scavenged tech lit the space with a soft orange glow. Walls were covered in charcoal sketches—hundreds of them. Some taped, others pinned, some torn. They lined the walls like memories desperately trying not to fade.
And each one was wrong in the same way.
They depicted places that didn't exist anymore.
People who weren't in any census.
Moments that had never happened—or had, but were erased.
"You drew all these?" he asked, reverently.
Junie nodded. "Some came from dreams. Others just... appeared in my hands. I don't control it. They find me. I'm just the pen."
She pointed at a large drawing on the back wall.
It showed a boy.
Orin.
But not as he was now.
This version had silver streaks in his hair. His arms bore markings that pulsed faintly on the page. His eyes looked awake. Like they saw behind the world.
And on his chest: a symbol.
A circle. With an open eye. Five slashes above it.
The Diver-Class emblem.
"I sketched that last week," she whispered. "Before I ever saw you."
Orin sat down slowly on a crate, his hands shaking.
"What am I?"
Junie didn't answer.
She opened her sketchbook again and flipped to the last page.
There, still half-finished, was the stone from aisle seven.
He stared.
"How did you—?"
Junie's eyes darkened.
"I think we're part of something the System buried," she said. "A loop that cracked. A story that wasn't supposed to finish. You're not the first Diver."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I draw someone else. A man. Covered in blood. Always kneeling. Always reaching for someone he never touches. His name…"
She trailed off, mouth trembling.
"…was Kaito."
Orin stood. "That's the name that keeps showing up. In the stone. In my head. On a badge I don't remember having. But when I say it aloud, the System—"
"Corrects," Junie finished. "Yeah. I know."
She looked at him.
"I don't think you triggered the System. I think you're what it tried to erase."
Orin stared down at his hands.
They were shaking.
And for the first time, he didn't try to stop them.
Because they felt like his own again.
Junie draws memories before they happen. Orin remembers names he never knew. But if Kaito was erased—what does that make Orin?
© 2025 Ofelia B Webb. All rights reserved.
This is an original work published on WebNovel.