The memory returns to me in fragments, like shards of glass glinting in the dark. It was a time when night swallowed my days, and sleep came only with the sun. That morning—if it was truly morning—I awoke adrift, searching the silent halls of my house for something I could not name. Each step echoed with uncertainty, the reason for my wandering just out of reach. A sudden jolt brought me fully awake, heart thundering, mind blank.

I wrestled with confusion. My mind was an empty canvas; I could remember nothing—not my name, not a single detail of who I was. The walls around me, once a sanctuary, now loomed as strangers. Pictures, furniture, and familiar corners held no comfort, only mystery. I reached out, grasping for any object that might anchor me, but everything slipped through my memoryless fingers.

Restlessness drove me from room to room, trying to fit together pieces of a puzzle I could no longer see. Fatigue settled into my bones, and I surrendered—hoping that sleep would restore the lost fragments of myself.

I drifted into another world—a hallway stretched before me, deep and endless. At its far end, a shadow lingered, heavy and silent. My breath caught as I sensed its gaze upon me, pressing cold fear into my chest. Instinct screamed for escape, and I dashed into the nearest room. But the darkness followed, sliding through the doorway as the door slammed shut, trapping me inside.

The air thickened, the presence growing closer, tightening its hold. I was powerless, cornered by something I could not name. In a final act of desperation, I screamed—the sound shattering the stillness.

But as the warmth of memory settled in, a chill crept along my spine. I walked to the hallway and caught my reflection in the hallway mirror—a face I did not recognize stared back at me. The eyes were mine, yet not mine at all, their dark depths swirling with shadows. In that moment, I realized: the shadow from my dream had not disappeared. It had found a home within me, its presence now fused to my very being. The mystery was not what had happened, but what I had become.

In an instant, I was awake again, the scream echoing in my ears. The weight lifted. Recognition flooded in—my name, my life, my home. The amnesia dissolved, shadow replaced by the warm light of memory. Yet, even now, the mystery of what had happened lingers, like a faint shadow just beyond the corners of my mind.