I didn’t notice it right away. It wasn’t until I caught my reflection later that morning that something felt… off. There, just beneath my ear, stretching down my neck, were dark, uneven marks I knew hadn’t been there before. At first, I laughed it off, assuming I had slept in a weird position or maybe scratched myself without realizing. But the more I looked, the less it made sense.
The night before had been completely normal—or at least, that’s how I remembered it. I went to bed like always, nothing unusual, nothing out of place. No injuries, no accidents. And yet, here I was, staring at something that looked deliberate, almost like it had appeared overnight without warning. That’s when the uneasy feeling started creeping in.
I tried to ignore it, covering it up and going about my day, but people noticed. A glance here, a second look there. One friend finally asked if I was okay, and I brushed it off with a joke. But inside, I couldn’t shake the thought that something wasn’t right. These weren’t just random marks—they had a pattern, a shape that made it feel like there was more to it than I understood.
By the time I got home, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I started replaying everything in my head, every moment from the night before, trying to find something—anything—that explained it. But there was nothing. Just a blank space where an answer should have been. And somehow, that made it worse than knowing the truth.
Now every time I look in the mirror, I see more than just those marks. I see a question I still can’t answer. Because sometimes, it’s not what you see that unsettles you… it’s what you don’t remember.
