First Memory: Wings. Silver and vast, cutting through clouds. Then—pain. Falling. The ground rushing up.
Last Thought Before Darkness: I hope I land somewhere soft.
The first thing I remembered was the butterfly.
It was blue—the color of forgotten skies—and it was dying on my hospital windowsill. Its wings trembled once, twice, a desperate fanning against sterile white tiles, then went still. Something sharp twisted in my chest. I wondered if I should feel sad. I wondered if I'd ever liked butterflies before this room stole whatever memories I'd once owned.
My head throbbed. A low, insistent drumming behind my eyes. White walls. White sheets. The smell of antiseptic and something floral. Lilies, maybe. Funeral flowers.
A clipboard at the foot of the bed read: JANE DOE. ADMITTED: 02/14. CONDITION: STABLE. MEMORY LOSS: TOTAL.
Jane Doe. A name for no one. A body taking up space.
I tried to move, and fire lanced across my shoulder blades. I gasped, fingers flying to my back through the thin hospital gown. Raised ridges met my touch—twin lines of scar tissue, symmetrical and long, running from my shoulders down to mid-back. They tingled, a phantom itch that felt like… feathers brushing skin.
*How did I get these?*
The door clicked open.
The man who entered looked like he'd stepped out of a Gothic romance novel and into the wrong century. Black hair swept back from a sharp, pale face. Eyes so dark they seemed to swallow the fluorescent light. A tailored charcoal suit that cost more than everything in this room. He held up a simple silver band between thumb and forefinger.
"You dropped this, Mrs. D'Cruz."
His voice was smooth, cold velvet.
I stared at the ring. I didn't remember it. I didn't remember *him*. But the way he said *Mrs. D'Cruz*—like it was a secret, a threat, and a promise all at once—sent another shiver through those strange scars on my back.
He moved closer. No sound from his polished shoes. He smelled like winter nights and old books.
"Who are you?" My voice came out raspy, unused.
A smile touched his lips, not reaching his eyes. "Your husband, Eleanor. Though you've always preferred Ella." He leaned down, his breath chilling the shell of my ear. "Play along," he whispered, the words so low they were almost subvocal. "Or we're both dead."
My heart hammered against my ribs. *Husband?*
The dying butterfly on the windowsill gave one final, violent shudder. Then, before my eyes, it dissolved—not into dust, but into shimmering silver particles that hung in the air for a breath before winking out.
Magic.
The word surfaced from the murk of my missing mind. *That was magic.*
His eyes—had they just flashed crimson?
I looked from the empty spot on the sill to the ring, then to his extended hand. His expression was impassive, but there was a tension in his jaw, a warning in the stillness of his body. Whoever he was, he wasn't asking.
I reached for the ring. My fingers brushed his. His skin was cold. Not the cool of air-conditioning, but a deep, unnatural chill that seeped into my bones.
I slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly.
"Hello, husband," I said, forcing my voice steady. It sounded more defiant than I felt. "Tell me, do I like butterflies?"
For a fraction of a second, his mask slipped. Surprise. Then something darker, more calculating. He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over me with an ownership that made my skin prickle.
"You *are* the butterfly, my dear," he said, his voice dropping back to that icy, pleasant tone. "And this hospital is your glass case." He offered his arm. "Shall we go home? The doctors say you're perfectly… empty. No need to linger."
Home. A word with no image attached.
I took his arm. The cold was sharper this time, almost painful. As he led me from the room, I glanced back one last time at the windowsill.
Where the butterfly had died, a single, shimmering blue scale remained, glowing faintly against the white.
He followed my gaze. His grip tightened imperceptibly on my arm. "Don't look back, Ella," he murmured. "The past is a country you've been exiled from. Be grateful."
We walked down the silent, too-bright hallway. Nurses smiled politely, averting their eyes from him. He moved with an unnatural grace, a predator in a human suit.
"What's your name?" I asked quietly. "My… husband."
"Aaron," he said. "Aaron D'Cruz." He didn't look at me. "And you are Eleanor D'Cruz. My wife. We've been married for six months. You had an accident. You've forgotten. That is the story. Stick to it."
"Is any of it true?"
He finally looked down at me. His eyes were black pools, endless. "Does it matter? Truth is a luxury for people with choices. You have one choice: survive."
We exited through automatic doors into a parking garage. Night had fallen. The air was cool, smelling of concrete and exhaust. A sleek black car waited, a beast of polished metal and dark windows.
He opened the passenger door for me. A gesture of courtesy that felt like being placed in a cage.
"Where are we really going?" I asked, not moving.
"To a mansion full of things that go bump in the night," he said, a faint, humorless smile touching his lips. "To my world. Where you will smile, you will play your part, and you will not, under any circumstances, ask questions about the scars on your back. Or the fact that you just watched a butterfly turn to stardust."
The words hung between us. He'd seen it too. He knew.
My back itched fiercely. *Wings*, my mind whispered. *They're wing scars.*
"What am I?" The question left my lips before I could stop it.
Aaron's smile vanished. He leaned in, one hand on the car roof, caging me. Up close, I could see the impossible perfection of his features, the subtle sharpness of his canines.
"You are my wife," he said, each word a drop of frost. "That is all you need to be. That is all you *can* be if you want to live through the week." He straightened. "Now get in the car, Ella. Our families are waiting. And they have teeth."
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold racked me. I slid into the leather seat. The door closed with a soft, final *thud*.
Through the windshield, I watched Aaron walk around the front of the car. For a moment, under the harsh garage lights, his shadow stretched long and wrong—taller, sharper, with points at the shoulders that looked like… horns.
Then he was in the driver's seat, the engine purring to life.
"A word of advice," he said as we pulled out into the neon-drenched night. "The people we're going to meet? They're not human. And neither, my dear amnesiac wife, are you. So whatever fragments start coming back to you? Whatever dreams of flying or fire or falling? Bury them. In this world, different is dead."
The city lights blurred past. In the side mirror, I saw my own reflection—pale face, wide eyes, a ring gleaming on my finger. A stranger wearing my skin.
And on the back of the passenger seat headrest, where there had been nothing a moment before, a single blue butterfly now rested, its wings perfectly still.
Watching me.