Novel & Cerita Memories Of A Night

ALLISON. This can’t be happening! No, I must be dreaming. For the past two weeks, I have been trying to erase any traces of memory that I had from that night. It was supposed to be a bleep in my mind; something that I shouldn’t even talk about anymore. The Howling Night was a blur and I wanted to keep it that way. That night was as good as a fever dream to me. I was like an animal who let my inner instincts get the best of me. It was bold. It was primal… in the most humiliating way.

Memories of the previous night began to resurface, hazy and fragmented. I lay still, my mind fogy as fragments of the previous night gradually coalesced. Memories resurfaced in fits and starts: the gut-wrenching news at work, the numbing drinks at the club, and then... him. The stranger. My thoughts sharpened, and with a jolt of clarity, reality hit: I'd awakened in a stranger's bed, the consequence of a drunken, reckless night. I felt a little shame wash over me, followed by a self-directed curse: Damn it!

When Memory Softens AURORA The city never sleeps, but some nights, it feels like it breathes with me. I stood at my apartment window, glass cold against my palms, watching taxis and headlights crisscross below. It was the kind of night that demanded reflection, a night when the world’s noise quieted just enough for memory to slip in. And memory arrived in the form of him. Zane Wilson. The thought made me flinch at first, a reflex I hadn’t felt in months. But this time, the flinch wasn’t fear. It was recognition. Acknowledge, I reminded myself. Not desire. Not longing. Just acknowledgment.

RAVEN The night was silent… too silent. The kind of silence that presses against your chest until you can feel your own heartbeat echoing in your ears. I sat up in bed, gasping for air as though I’d been drowning in my sleep. My room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of the moon seeping through the curtains, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then the memories came; swift, brutal, merciless…dragging me back to the one night I’d spent my whole life trying to forget.

Memories begin to come back in waves. Last night, the nightclub, too many drinks and that guy who kept humping me on the dance floor. My eyes slowly open, the sunlight doesn't help my migraine. Fúck, this is not my room and not my bed either. I tried to turn around and get a view of who was holding that firm grip on me. Brown messy hair, cute face and he is still asleep and everything comes flooding back to my memory about last night.

FLASHBACK Brett struggled with a recurring memory which he couldn't forget no matter how hard he tried. He saw a negative vision of that night at the club. There was the silhouette of a slender person who approached him, and they had a short laugh. He could hear her voice echoing in the abyss and her enthusiastic tone, but he couldn't remember who she was. He remembered the sound of her moans, her sudden fright and his soft hands sliding down her bare skin. He remembered the coolness of the air conditioner and the intensity of their sex, but that was it! He couldn't remember any other thing; not her name or her face.

The memory clawed its way back, slow and jagged. A tremor ran down her spine, and the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck stood stiff, as if recoiling from the vivid remnants of that night— the night she wished she could erase. Rome couldn’t remember the exact moment everything faded to black. One second, she was clutching a drink too tightly; the next, she was drowning in silence. Had the pain knocked her unconscious? Or had she simply slipped into sleep, unaware, as the man— that man— took what was never his to take? She didn’t know. The fragments were fractured and bloodless, nothing more than silent screams buried in the fog of her memory.

ANDY’S POV I block my eyes from the sun with my hand as I get up from the bed. I decided to sleep with the light on and I forgot to shut the window last night before I went to sleep, so the blinding sun greets me with a subtle threat of blindness. I put a slight pressure on my eye to ease the sleepiness before climbing out of the bed. It was hard to fall asleep last night because my mind didn’t stop replaying the events of that day and when I finally fell asleep, I did not know.

A very memorable night. ***

Sara scoffed to herself as soon as she was in the safety of her own room. Shaking her head, Sara headed to her closet and washed up before changing into her night clothes. Following her night routine, she turned off the lights and laid down on the bed. It was already three in the night now and she had to wake up at seven in the morning but sleep was far away from her reach. She turned and tossed around in her bed unable to fall asleep. Everytime she tried to sleep, all the horrible memories began flashing before her eyes. The whispers, the voices, the events...