Memory Lane Up In The Headlights Novels & Stories

"Captain Schneider, those memories have been significantly damaged and contain a lot of negative brainwaves before he died. If we retrieve it forcefully, it might…" "I said to retrieve them!" Kyra repeated loudly, and the technician did not dare to say anything more as he pressed the button with trembling hands. The screen lit up, but the image was unusually shaky. It was filled with shrill noises and looked like it was about to fall apart. It depicted a dark and cold underground garage, with me covered in wounds as I leaned against a cold pillar. Every breath I took brought along with it the scent of blood. In my hands was a USB. I clenched it in my hands as it was the last copy that held t

Sage Where is my folder. I didn't forget it. I never forget anything, it's one of the perks of having a photographic memory. Essays are due today and I can't miss the deadline. My college fund depends on it. I stop rummaging through my bag as I approach my locker. Then it hits me like it always does. The memory is hazy and fast but it's me putting it in there yesterday before I went home. I blink and it's gone as im spinning the combination on the locker and it opens with a loud thud. I flinch at the noise.

The car hummed like a small, private world. He would later wake with a headache that felt like a small war, and the memory of the night would arrive in slices, the heat of the club, Lila’s laugh, the car, the yearning that had taken him for a moment. For now there was only the present: the wheel under his fingers, the road ahead, and the thin belief that for tonight, at least, he had traded the ledger for a small borrowed breath.

The headlights were bright and coming fast and Mable was right there in the middle of the road, her eyes wide, her hair wet from rain that I could hear but not feel. She was looking at me. Not at the car. At me. Like I was the thing she had not seen coming. I did not move. The crash was not loud. That was the part that woke me up. In every movie, every scene, it was always loud. This was just a dull, deep thud, and then she was gone, and the headlights swept past, and I was still standing there in the empty street with the rain coming down and and a strange quiet settled in, the kind you feel when you've seen something bad and didn't do anything.

The walk back to my car felt heavy, the weight of memory pressing down on me. I climbed into my car, grateful for the warmth of the heater as I started the engine. The road was dark and empty as I drove, the headlights cutting through the gloom. My mind drifted back to my mother, to the way she used to laugh, the way she’d sing to herself as she cooked. I was so lost in thought that I almost didn’t see the car until it was too late. It came out of nowhere, headlights blinding as it swerved into my lane. I slammed on the brakes, my heart leaping into my throat. My tires screeched against the pavement, and for a moment, time seemed to slow.

A memory flickered in the furthest part of my mind. I stopped walking, my eyes squinting as Linc got closer and closer to the car. Then the lights flicked as he unlocked the doors. He turned around and frowned. "You okay? I thought you'd be happy I brought my car back from Malibu so you wouldn't have to ride in the truck." The shrieking sound of tires peeling out of a driveway hit me hard between the temples. I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed my eyes shut as my mind went back to that night...

Memory lane always, always means that a person is in the brink of death. I saw flashbacks of my twenty-five years of life all clear in my head. I saw me when I was in elementary; me when I was in high school taking karate lessons; me when I was in college, using the news simulator for the first time; me with Lorde riding Trinitus together; me with Eriol in our most recent encounter last night, and me with Aeshma... Yes. Him. Aeshma. With one last haul of breath, I shouted. Shouted with my heart crying out too.

Driving down the road, I raised the volume on my music, But as I belted out the lyrics, a sudden recollection of the girl I had met at the café jolted me like a bolt of lightning. My head throbbed with the intensity of the memory, and I had to pull over to the side of the road to collect myself. I clenched my head, trying to alleviate the pain, but it only seemed to intensify. It was like my head was splitting open. I tired to focus on something else but the pain but it wasn't working. I leaned back against the car seat, taking slow and deliberate breaths, until the throbbing in my head slowly ebbed away.

But why did it feel like I'd been dropped into the scene mid-take? "Fuck," Katya murmured beside me. I spared her a glance and saw the blooming red at her hairline. She hadn't buckled in, and when I slammed the brake her skull kissed the dashboard hard enough to leave lipstick. Fuck. What was happening? "I'd love to give you some time to think, but we should probably get out of the way," Miles said, his tone bored. Only then did the honks from other cars sound clear to me. This whole time I thought it was part of the show in my head.

**** ~ Flashback ~ Before heading to the library, Evelina and Rissa are on their way to the opposite end of the class to the library. Evelina walks and she stops from her path, she just remembers that there was something she forgot. Seeing Evelina's reaction stop, Rissa asks her. "Eve, what's wrong? Is there anything you left in the classroom?" "No, I forgot something. That actually, I wanted to return the book in the library," she replied.