We walked for two hours before we found the boathouse.
Nobody spoke. The bridge was still visible behind us. The sedan was still on it. Parked. Waiting. Its headlights were off now, but it hadn’t moved.
Dana found the boathouse at the end of the riverwalk. Half-collapsed. Roof sagging on one side. Door hanging open. Inside, old tarps covered a fishing boat that hadn’t seen water in years. A kerosene lamp sat on a workbench, dry and intact.
Dana found matches in a tin box. She lit the lamp.
The light was small and yellow and didn’t reach the corners. That was fine. Nobody wanted to see the corners.
Nadia sat on an overturned crate. Her ankle was swollen, but she’d stopped limping once they were off the riverwalk. She had her notebook open on her knee. She wasn’t writing. She was just holding the pen.
Dana stood by the door, looking out at the river. The pipe was still in her hand. She hadn’t put it down since the bridge.
Mira sat on the floor with her back against the boat. Her jeans were torn at the knee. Her hands were still shaking. She hadn’t said anything since the control room.
I sat across from her. My shoulder had stopped bleeding. The strip of her shirt was dark with dried blood. My left hand rested on my knee. Small. Still. I didn’t look at it.
On the wall above the workbench, an old clock hung crooked. Its hands were frozen at 02:13.
Nobody mentioned it.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Then Dana said, without turning around, "My brother drowned in that river."
Nadia looked up.
"He was twelve," Dana said. "I was fifteen. We were fishing with our father. He slipped on the rocks. The current took him."
She said it flatly. The way someone says a fact they’ve said before.
"They never found the body. They found his shoes. On the bank. Lined up."
Nadia didn’t say anything.
"I was there when the wall opened," Dana said. "In the building. I saw him."
"What did he say?"
Dana didn’t answer for a moment.
"He said he was sorry."
She turned from the door.
"I’ve spent six years telling myself he drowned. That it was an accident. Then I walked into a room and he was sitting there, looking at me like he’d been waiting."
She looked at me.
"Your father is alive."
I didn’t answer.
"You know that now. You’ve known for a while. But you keep saying ’my father is dead’ because it’s easier than admitting he chose to leave."
The words landed.
I wanted to argue. I didn’t.
Dana walked past me and sat on the floor near the boat. She put the pipe down beside her. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked tired. Not guarded. Just tired.
Nadia spoke from the crate.
"My brother called me from this bridge."
Nobody moved.
"Two years ago. 2:13 in the morning. He said he was in a car with a man who wouldn’t show his face. He said the man kept asking him to say a name. Then the call cut off."
She opened her notebook. A photograph. A man in his late twenties. Dark hair. A scar on his jaw.
"His name is Rafael. He was a paramedic. I’ve been looking for him for two years."
She closed the notebook.
"I don’t know what I’m doing here."
Dana looked at her.
"You’re here because you don’t want to be the only person who believes something no one else believes."
Nadia didn’t answer.
"Neither do I," Dana said. "That’s why I stayed."
Mira shifted beside the boat. She hadn’t spoken yet. But she was watching the two of them with something I hadn’t seen in her before. Not fear. Not calculation.
Recognition.
I looked at her.
"What?"
She didn’t look at me.
"I know what they’re describing."
"What?"
"The feeling. Of being the only one who knows something and not being able to prove it."
She pulled her knees up to her chest.
"I’ve been losing my memory for three years. I never told anyone. Not because I was scared I was sick. Because I was scared I wasn’t."
"You lost the memories," I said. "How could you not be sick?"
"Because sick people have symptoms. I don’t. I’ve been tested. There’s nothing wrong with me."
She looked at me.
"But things are missing. And I don’t know when they went missing. And I don’t know what they were."
The kerosene lamp flickered.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "I used to think it was stress. Or grief. My mother died when I was nineteen. I thought maybe that was it."
"But it wasn’t."
"No. Because the memories I lost aren’t about her. They’re about you."
The room went still.
I looked at her.
"What?"
"I don’t remember meeting you."
"You met me at the clinic. Three months ago."
"I know the facts. I have them written down. I know the date. I know you came in bleeding and I stitched you up. I know you came back the next week. I know we’ve been meeting twice a week since."
She met my eyes.
"But I don’t remember any of it. Not one minute. I have no memory of you before the night we went to the building."
The words sat in the room.
I looked at my wrist. At the name written there.
MIRA.
"You knew," I said.
"I suspected."
"When?"
"Two weeks ago. I found an old note I’d written myself. It said: ’Don’t trust him. But don’t leave him.’ I didn’t know who I was talking about until I saw you at the bar."
She hadn’t looked away from me.
"I’ve been trying to figure out what that means ever since."
"You could have asked."
"Would you have told me?"
No. I wouldn’t have. Because I hadn’t known either. Not until she said it.
The lamp flickered again.
Outside, on the wall, the clock was still at 02:13.
Dana stood up. She walked to the door and looked out at the river. The rain had stopped. The water was dark and still. The bridge was visible in the distance. The sedan was still on it.
Nadia stood too. She walked to the workbench and picked up the lamp. She held it near the boat, checking the hull. Old wood. Rotted at the edges.
"Can this float?" she asked.
"Probably not," Dana said.
"Can it hold four people?"
"Probably not."
"Then we should find somewhere else before morning."
Nobody moved.
Then Mira spoke from the floor.
"Kael."
I looked at her.
"You haven’t said anything."
"There’s nothing to say."
"There’s always something."
I looked at my hand. The left one. Small. The fingers too short. I still couldn’t feel it. I could see it. I could move it if I told it to. But nothing came back.
"I’m afraid," I said.
"You’ve said that."
"No. Not like this."
I looked at her.
"I’m afraid that when this is over, I won’t remember who I was. I’ve lost so much already. The smell of my mother’s kitchen. Her voice. I don’t know what else is missing. I don’t know what’s going to be missing tomorrow."
"But you’re still here."
"That’s not the same thing as knowing who I am."
"It’s not supposed to be."
"Then what is it?"
She didn’t answer right away. She looked at me the way she looked at patients who couldn’t tell her where it hurt.
"It’s a starting point," she said.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
She reached across the space between us. She didn’t touch my hand. She touched my wrist. The one with her name on it.
"You’re carrying my name," she said. "I don’t know what that means yet. But you’re carrying it. And I’m carrying something too."
She let go.
"When I look at you, I know I’m supposed to know you. I know there’s a version of me that remembers everything. I just can’t find her. But I know she exists. Because I wrote the note. Because I kept coming back."
She sat back.
"You’re not the only one who’s scared, Kael. You’re just the only one who says it out loud."
The room was quiet.
Then, from somewhere beyond the boathouse — far away, past the river, past the bridge — came a sound.
Not knocking. Not tapping. Not the pattern.
A car door closing.
One.
Then silence.
Nobody moved. Dana’s hand found the pipe. Nadia’s hand found her notebook. Mira’s hand found mine.
The clock on the wall ticked once.
02:14.
Then stopped again.
I looked at Mira.
She looked at me.
"The bridge," she said.
"I know."
"The sedan."
"I know."
"You’re not going."
It wasn’t a question.
"No," I said. "Not tonight."
Dana moved to the door. She closed it. She slid the old wooden bar across it.
"We sleep in shifts," she said. "I’ll take the first one."
"I’m not tired," Nadia said.
"You will be."
Nobody argued.
Dana took the first watch. Nadia lay down on a tarp near the wall. She didn’t close her eyes. She just stared at the ceiling.
Mira leaned her head against the boat. Her eyes were open too.
I sat where I was. Looking at my wrist. At the name.
Then I heard something. Not the mark. Not the child. Not the system.
Just the rain. Beginning again. Soft. On the roof. On the river.
For the first time in days, it sounded like rain should sound.