The school bell rang, but Harper barely heard it. The air felt thicker now, like the walls themselves were aware of her defiance. She gripped the worn notebook in her bag, the one filled with hastily scribbled symbols, notes, and names she refused to forget.
She rounded the corner near the science wing and spotted him.
Jamie Lorne.
Just like always—standing by the water fountain, chatting with a few students like nothing had happened. Like they hadn't spent nights hiding behind library shelves, unraveling the threads of this cursed place. Like he hadn't kissed her forehead in Room 13A and promised he'd never forget.
But he had.
Or so it seemed.
Harper walked up, chest tight, and held out the photo she had found again. It was grainy but unmistakable: her, Jamie, and Eli, huddled together in the old archive room.
"Do you remember this?" she asked, voice low.
Jamie glanced at it, brow furrowed.
And then—something flickered. Just a second. But enough.
"Where did you get this?" he asked slowly.
Harper didn't smile. "You do remember."
"I don't know. It's like… a dream I forgot I had."
She nodded, pulling out the notebook and flipping to a page covered in rough, repeating symbols.
"It's the system," she whispered. "It resets us. Rewrites us. But not perfectly. People like us, the ones with strong anchors—we leak. We remember in dreams. In flashes. In moments that don't make sense."
Jamie stared at the notebook. "And you're trying to break it."
"Trying," Harper said. "But I need help."
By lunch, Harper had found Eli near the edge of the soccer field. His eyes were distant, but when she said the name Katherine Quinn, he dropped his sandwich.
"That name… I used to hear it in my sleep," he whispered. "I thought I was going crazy."
"You're not," Harper said. "You were just waking up."
She gathered the three of them together in the old greenhouse behind the gym—the one no one ever used since the roof caved in two years ago. It was perfect. Forgotten.
"The system operates on a pattern," she explained. "When it detects abnormalities—people who resist resets—it isolates them, distracts them, erases connections. We need to make those connections stronger. Make them unbreakable."
Morgan joined next.
Then Sawyer.
Each of them carried fragments. A hallway that didn't exist anymore. A teacher who vanished mid-semester. A friend no one else could recall.
They called themselves The Remembered.
Harper gave them pages from her notebook to carry, symbols to mark on their arms with invisible ink, and rules:
No mirrors.
No running water.
Never fall asleep near a school speaker.
Always carry something personal—something the system can't replicate.
That evening, as they left the greenhouse, the PA system crackled.
"All students, please report to the auditorium for a special assembly."
Harper froze. There was no scheduled assembly. No one had mentioned one.
Jamie touched her shoulder. "It's starting, isn't it?"
Harper nodded. "They're trying to silence us."
But she was done being quiet.
"Then let's be loud."