Rhiana sat on the edge of her bed, unmoving as twilight crept across her room. The fading sun left streaks of gold across the bright yellow walls, casting long shadows that slowly swallowed the light. Her hands lay in her lap, pale and trembling. Her eyes were fixed on them, unfocused.
The room around her was once her sanctuary. Now it felt hollow. Paint tubes were scattered across the floor, canvases half-finished, brushes forgotten. Painting used to be her escape, her joy. But lately, even that had abandoned her.
She rose slowly and stepped onto the cold stone floor, slipping into a pair of soft blue slippers. She crossed to the mirror and stared at herself. Her reflection looked the same on the surface—young, striking, elegant—but her face was tired. Shadows clung under her eyes. Her skin had lost its glow. Stress had etched itself into her features.
She used to feel alive when she painted. Now, she just felt haunted.
The hallucinations had begun quietly—flickers in the corner of her vision, an eerie feeling of being watched. Then came the dreams. Vivid. Terrifying. Too real to ignore.
Sometimes, when she woke up, she wasn't even sure where she was.
There were messages, too. Words scrawled onto her mirror in the fog of the shower. Messages she didn't write. Messages that disappeared the moment she looked away.
Rhiana's room mirrored the state of her mind: disordered, confused, not quite hers anymore. Above her bed hung an old photograph of her and her best friend, Alice, taken when they were just five. They had once been inseparable.
But now, Rhiana kept to herself.
She spent her days painting, but even her art had changed. Gone were the bright colors and happy scenes. Now, her work was darker. Twisted. Emotional. And oddly... familiar. She had begun to paint places she'd never seen, yet somehow recognized. People she didn't know, but couldn't forget. Once, she painted a child in a garden with strange shadows looming overhead. Another time, a woman lying on a bed with sadness etched in her eyes.
Every painting was signed with a bold "R," as always.
But a few were signed with "M."
She didn't know why.
She didn't remember doing it.
Her parents had noticed she was changing. She no longer laughed. She barely spoke. They tried to reach her, to understand what was wrong, but how could she explain something even she didn't understand?
Rhiana no longer felt like herself. Something inside her was slipping.
Something she couldn't name.
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Fossils of Memory
خيال (فانتازيا)Some memories are not your own-until they begin to haunt you. Rhiana Fosters has everything-a loving family, close friends, and a talent for painting. But when a recurring dream pulls her into a world she doesn't recognize, her perfect life begins t...
