The grocery store hummed with fluorescent indifference.
The aisles were familiar—bread on the right, canned goods two rows over, dairy in the back—but tonight, they felt strange. Unstable. Like a dream recited secondhand.
Mia stood frozen between displays of tomato soup and beans. A shopping basket hung from one hand, a can of peaches slipping slowly toward the floor.
She blinked.
Her own name had vanished.
Not entirely—she still remembered how to write it, the way it looked in block letters, on old envelopes, across the inside cover of journals—but in her head, it had become disconnected. A placeholder. As if someone else had borrowed it for too long.
Around her, the world moved normally. An elderly man selected pasta with deliberate care. A child knocked over a cereal box and laughed. None of them knew.
Mia clutched the edge of a shelf.
Breathe, she thought. Just breathe.
But even the rhythm of that felt borrowed.
⸻
The music had started the unraveling.
Two days earlier, at the block party, she'd caught herself humming along to a band's cover of a 1990s hit. But that band hadn't formed until years later.
She'd brushed it off.
Now she couldn't.
Too many echoes.
⸻
The speaker above aisle four buzzed faintly. A tune played—a soft instrumental loop that she couldn't name but somehow felt nostalgic for. It twisted her stomach.
She turned, eyes scanning. Looking for something tangible. Something fixed.
And that's when she saw it.
A poster. Faded, curling at the corners. Taped sloppily beside the refrigerated section.
"Fresh this Fall!" it read. But beneath the apple illustration, a handwritten note had been scrawled.
In her handwriting.
But she hadn't written it.
Had she?
Mia stepped closer.
It was a grocery list. Nothing unusual. Milk. Ginger. Lemons.
But the final line chilled her:
"Don't forget where you started."
⸻
She stared until the letters blurred.
Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her journal. Flipped to the section labeled MEMORY DRIFT.
She scribbled: Episode—visual overlap. Echo writing. Unknown authorship. Location: 12th & Granger Market.
Her fingers trembled.
Behind her, a shelf creaked.
She turned quickly.
Nothing there.
Only a half-stocked rack of lentils.
Still, the silence had changed.
The world felt slightly off-kilter, as though all the colors had shifted two shades sideways.
⸻
Mia didn't remember how long she stood there. But when she finally moved, it was to clutch a can of soup. The weight of it anchored her. Cold, metal, branded.
Real.
She placed it in her basket with care.
One thing at a time, she told herself.
Anchor. Label. Verify.
⸻
At checkout, she couldn't meet the cashier's eyes.
He rang up the items with a practiced rhythm. Asked if she needed a receipt.
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
He handed her the strip of thermal paper.
And there, at the bottom—
Her name.
Handwritten.
She hadn't given it.
The curl of the S. The sharp loop of the M.
It was hers. And not.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She stepped away without thanking him.
Outside, the air bit colder than it should've.
⸻
Later that night, Mia laid the receipt across her notebook page.
She didn't tape it.
Didn't want to fix it in place just yet.
She turned it over. Checked for marks.
Nothing.
But she couldn't stop staring.
She whispered her own name aloud.
It sounded hollow.
Still, she said it again.
This time, firmer.
Anchoring herself, one syllable at a time.
Then she wrote it down.
Twice.
Block letters.
Cursive.
She stared at the two versions.
Only one looked right.
The other looked like someone else's version of her.
She circled it anyway.
⸻
She turned the page.
Labeled the new entry: Reinforcement Sequence.
Beneath it:
Name (spoken, written) Object (locket, key, notebook) Location (library corner, stairwell behind clinic) Time cue (sunset, 3:12 alarm)
Each of these, she knew, could root her.
If she lost more.
She underlined them all.
⸻
Hours later, sleep didn't come.
Instead, Mia sat on the floor, journal in lap, flashlight balanced between her knees.
She flipped back through older entries.
One stuck out.
An entry labeled simply: "Beginnings."
In it, she'd written about her first observation of Sarah.
She'd described Sarah's walk. Her coat. The way she paused at crosswalks even when no cars came.
And she'd signed it with her real name.
She touched the corner of the page.
Then closed the book.
And whispered:
"I'm still here."
⸻
The candle she'd lit earlier had burned low. Only a nub of wax remained, flickering shadows onto the notebook's cover.
Mia reached for it.
Extinguished the flame.
The smoke curled upward, fragrant and brief.
She breathed it in.
And waited for the silence to settle.