I have forgotten.
When I first opened my eyes I saw a room of white stone. And the light was bright, too bright, coming into the room from two high windows. I have never been so afraid. I don't know this room. I don't know this girl who woke with me, or these children who cry,their faces streaked with black lines. They've forgotten, too.
But this book was tied to my wrist, and the book says I have a family, and that my family will be marked with dye so I'll know them. I think I have to believe this book. There is violence outside. We've barred the door. I don't know what else is outside this room, but I think there are more of us, and they did not wake up with a book. I want to scream like they are. I want to cry like the children. I want to claw at my own skin and find of what's buried inside. I want to know who I've been.
This book says that I knew this Forgetting would come. That it's happened before and will happen again. We have to write it all down. Everything about us, as the book has told me to do now. The children with their marks on their cheeks run from me. I think I am their mother. I will read them this book. I'll tell them their names and I will tell myself mine.
We are made of our memories. Now we are nothing. It feels like death.
What have we done to deserve this piece of hell?
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE FORGETTING
Page 41
274 words
YOU ARE READING
The Forgetting
Fantasy"What isn't written, isn't remembered. Even your crimes." Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every 12 years the city descends into the bloody ch...
