The village was small.
Wooden fences. Clay walls.
Smoke curling from chimneys like soft questions.
It looked untouched by pain — the kind of place time forgot.
Lirae and the boy walked slowly between houses, watched silently by faces at windows. No one spoke. No one approached.
But they were seen.
At the edge of the village, by a crumbling fountain, a child sat alone.
Barefoot. Wrapped in a dark shawl too big for him.
He held a stick.
And with it, he drew in the dirt.
> Circles.
Spirals.
Lines inside lines.
Lirae’s breath caught.
She recognized the symbols.
Not just from the Archive.
From the Core.
> “Those are memory marks,” she whispered.
The boy beside her frowned.
> “How would a child here know that?”
They approached slowly.
The child didn’t look up.
Just kept drawing — hand steady, as if possessed by some quiet rhythm only he could hear.
> “Hi,” Lirae said gently.
“What’s your name?”
No answer.
She knelt.
> “Are you lost?”
Still, nothing.
But then—
He looked up.
And in his eyes…
a glow.
Not human.
Not just human.
> “He’s not from here,” the boy whispered.
“Is he… one of us?”
The child finally spoke.
A voice so soft, it almost wasn’t there.
> “I’ve been waiting.”
> “For who?” Lirae asked.
He looked at her.
> “You.”
Then he held up his hand.
In his tiny palm was a stone — carved with the same spiral as her Core.
She reached for it, and when her fingers brushed it—
Flash.
A vision.
Herself. In another timeline. Holding a baby.
Screaming. Running. Hiding something.
Then darkness.
Then this boy.
Alone. Watching the stars fall.
She pulled back, gasping.
> “He’s a memory,” she whispered.
“One I… buried.”
> “Why?” the boy asked.
Lirae looked at the child.
He smiled.
A sad, knowing smile.
> “Because I’m what you couldn’t protect.”
YOU ARE READING
memory core
Fantasy> ❝Memories don't die... They just hide where no one dares to look.❞ Mira thought she was just a normal girl. Until she woke up in a strange room, with a name that wasn't hers and a heart that remembered something... or someone... else. There is som...
