Eliora couldn't shake the dream.
It wasn't vivid, not exactly—just fragments of light and warmth and the distant sound of a piano drifting over water. But something in it stayed with her long after waking. A feeling of belonging that clung to her ribs. A face she couldn't recall but knew she missed.
And a name she whispered in her sleep.
Aaren.
She didn't know where the name came from.
She only knew that every time she opened her eyes and found herself alone in her sterile apartment, it felt wrong. Like she'd been supposed to wake up beside someone whose memory had been scrubbed from the world.
Or from her.
The Bureau doctors said it was "residual neural disturbance"—a common side effect after high-grade scan purges. She nodded, accepted the pills they offered, and played the part.
But deep down, Eliora knew it wasn't disturbance she felt.
It was absence.
Something had been taken.
And she meant to get it back.
Across the city, Aaren played the same melody every morning.
He didn't know where it had come from. It had no title, no structure. Just a tune that looped in his mind, fragile as breath, and always ending on the same aching note.
He was blind, yes—but not in the way people thought.
He saw with sound, with space, with memory that hadn't yet been named. And sometimes, when he played that melody, he saw flashes behind his eyes. A green place. A lake. Laughter that belonged to someone he hadn't met yet. Or had forgotten.
Sometimes, he whispered into the air:
"Are you out there?"
And the silence never answered.
But it trembled.
Eliora found the lake by accident.
Or maybe it wasn't an accident at all.
She had followed a pull in her chest for hours, walking through back trails and overgrown paths on the edge of the city. Every turn felt familiar, every tree a landmark she didn't recognize but somehow trusted.
Then she saw it.
A clearing.
Water stretched before her, calm and glassy.
The moment she stepped into the light, something broke inside her.
She had been here.
Her breath caught. Her knees weakened. Her eyes stung with tears that had no reason.
But they knew.
Her body knew.
Her heart knew.
She wasn't alone.
Aaren froze mid-note.
He'd been playing under a tree, near the edge of the lake, when a shift in the air made him pause.
He turned his face slightly toward the woods.
Someone was there.
His hands trembled. His heart raced.
He stood slowly and waited.
Footsteps emerged from the brush. A figure stepped out.
And in that instant—
he knew her.
He didn't know how.
Didn't know her name. Her story.
But her presence was a chord he hadn't realized he'd been missing. Her scent struck him like lightning. Her silence filled something hollow in him.
He whispered: "It's you."
She stopped several paces away.
Eyes wide. Lips trembling.
"I… I don't know how I got here," she said. "I was walking and I… this place—"
"I've been waiting for you," he said, softer now. "Even when I didn't know I was."
Her breath hitched.
She stepped forward.
So did he.
And then they were only inches apart.
He reached out—slowly, carefully—and touched her hand.
The moment their skin met, a current ran between them.
They didn't speak.
Because memory hadn't returned.
But recognition had.
They sat at the lake's edge for hours, saying little, allowing silence to do what words could not.
Eliora watched the way his fingers moved across his lap, as if always reaching for a song. She wondered if her voice had once lived in the music he played. She wondered if he'd ever kissed her. Held her. Loved her.
She wondered why her chest hurt so much with him sitting right there beside her.
"I think we were something once," she said.
He nodded slowly. "I think we still are."
She looked at him.
Tears lined her lashes, but she didn't cry.
Because even without the truth—this feeling was real.
That night, Eliora couldn't sleep.
The wind from the lake whispered against the windows of her small apartment, and she heard the melody again. That same piece Aaren played by instinct.
Only this time, in the dream, she was playing it—with him.
Two sets of hands on a keyboard. Her laughter curling around his silence. The scent of rain. The weight of his head resting on her shoulder.
And a phrase, whispered against her skin:
> "If we forget, promise me we'll find each other where the music meets the water."
She gasped awake.
And when she sat up in bed, tears streaked her face.
She didn't know why.
But she believed the voice.
The next morning, Aaren opened the old synth and found a message scratched into the wood beneath the keys.
He hadn't done it.
He didn't know who had.
It read:
> "Echo Sequence Locked in Subject E. You're the key."
His fingers hovered above the words.
He didn't understand.
But part of him did.
And when he closed the synth, he whispered:
"Eliora."
The name came from nowhere.
But it fit.
Back in the Bureau, a young technician ran a scan anomaly report up the chain.
"Subject E. Kasem. Unscheduled memory flare. Unknown origin. Emotional pattern consistent with post-recovery imprint pairing."
The analyst blinked. "She remembered?"
"Only a trace."
"Suppress it."
"No," said a voice behind him.
It was Director Sayla Voss.
She stared at the screen, her expression unreadable.
"Let it bloom."
"Ma'am?"
"Let's see how far love goes when no one's watching."
She smiled, the kind of smile that never reached the eyes.
"Some echoes are worth studying twice."