You Will Forget This Story

He walked through the city like he'd been here before.

But nothing stayed the same for long.

The buildings were too tall, but also too narrow. Storefronts with names he couldn't read. Signs that flickered even in daylight. The lampposts bent slightly toward the street like they were eavesdropping.

Everyone he passed looked familiar.

But not real.

Their faces flickered—different eyes one second, different mouths the next. Smiles that didn't reach where they should. Conversations that sounded rehearsed. No one looked at him. Not directly. Not twice.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and kept walking.

"I need the key."

He said it under his breath, like he was repeating something someone had told him. He didn't know which key, or where it was, or what it opened.

But he knew he was supposed to find it.

He turned onto a narrow alley that hadn't been there before.

The bricks were wet. The sky above looked too far away.

Garbage bins lined the walls, but none of them smelled. There was no wind, but newspapers drifted slowly through the air like they were underwater.

He bent down, checked beneath a crate.

Nothing.

He kicked aside a cardboard box and found only shadows.

Still, he muttered again: "The key's here. Somewhere."

He checked his coat. Nothing in the inside pocket. Nothing in the lining.

Hadn't he already found it once?

The thought came uninvited. Heavy.

A brass key. Letter E.

Did that happen already?

Or is that still going to happen?

He stopped outside a glass shop window. Behind the glass was a display of clocks—some running backward, some stopped, some clicking violently as if trying to catch up to themselves.

His reflection was there. Faint. Distant.

It didn't move when he did.

He turned away.

Across the street stood a man in a wide hat and a coat too long for his frame. He was holding something small in his gloved hand—something glinting.

A key?

The man turned and walked into a door that hadn't been there a moment ago. The door closed behind him.

By the time the protagonist crossed the street, the door was gone.

Just brick.

He kept walking.

The streets were rearranging.

Shop signs replaced themselves mid-blink. Cobblestone turned to pavement turned to tile turned to mud.

His footsteps slowed.

He looked at his hands.

No key.

But when he curled his fingers, something felt familiar. Like they'd held it once.

He looked up at the sky.

It was the wrong color.

He ducked into another alley, unsure whether he was going forward or backward anymore. One of the bricks was loose. He knelt and tugged it free, hands scraping stone.

Behind the brick—only a scrap of paper.

Folded neatly.

No writing.

But the paper smelled faintly of smoke.

And the edges were singed.