The House That Time Forgot Novels & Stories

“They come out.” Her voice broke easily. “They have hidden themselves all the time.” Aren looked into the hallway. More and more children appeared. Not hundreds. Not an infinite amount. Just kids. Forget children. Waiting children. And for the first time since their arrival, he became clear: The real secret of this house was not darkness. Not ghosts. Not curses. But the terrible power of forgetting. And that's why the house had called after them. Because they knew something that hardly anyone else understood:

All of them screaming silently. All of them forgotten. First Hope struggled against the chain. “Don’t listen to it!” The Forgotten tilted its head. “Why?” Its voice changed. For one second, it sounded like a child. Then like an old woman. Then like a man. Then like Hope herself. “Because I am everything you refused to remember.” Hope’s heart stopped. The Forgotten raised one hand. The chamber disappeared. Hope suddenly found herself standing in a small bedroom. Sunlight entered through a window.

Will you come back to me. Not will you marry me. Will you come back to me. I stood there for a long time. The apartment was very quiet. I thought about the email. Forty-three days. The biggest production company in the world and a version of myself that was still becoming and a man on one knee in my living room who had finally learned how to see me. I thought about the rosemary jars. How I kept them for two years. How I always knew why. "Get up," I said softly.

I nodded, avoided her gaze, and went to the kitchen to get some water to take the medicine. That night, Mom slept beside me. I fell asleep quickly, but I had a nightmare. In my dream, I kept going back to the day I was hypnotized. The hypnotist had held me down and kept telling me to forget what my family looked like. I had tried to force myself awake, but no matter what I did, I could not wake up. In the end, I really did forget Mom, Dad, and Zack. I jolted awake from the dream, drenched in cold sweat. Mom woke up too and instinctively patted my shoulder. "What is it, Rena? Did you have a nightmare?"

"Hello?" ​The same mysterious female voice spoke from the other end. "Watch the video." ​Javier stiffened as he overheard. "What video?" ​"The one inside the package," the woman replied. ​Nina's grip tightened around the phone. "Who are you?" ​The woman ignored the question. "If you want to know why your husband forgot your anniversary... start by learning what happened six years ago." ​The call disconnected. ​Without wasting another second, Nina hurried to her laptop and inserted the flash drive. Only one untitled file appeared on the screen. Javier clicked play.

I'll break and right now that utterly can not happen. He shrugs and tries to recall the first time. It takes him a moment but eventually I can see a lightbulb go off in his head. "I remember-" he nearly seems to give out a giggle. "Remember in those dreams of ours? How over and over they wanted us to remember so bad? What do you think would happen if we couldn't? If our brains forced us to forget." He reminisces, I don't have time for this. Well, actually I do have time. We don't have much to do. No- I don't have much to do. Yet, I don't want to be here longer than I have to. Every moment doesn't feel right.

The Forgotten Mate 4. The Baby. Months had passed since that fateful night, and yet the memory of the mysterious man lingered within the depths of my mind, a bittersweet reminder of the fleeting happiness he had brought me. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, the pain of my existence persisted, unyielding in its relentless grip.

But, despite the hard work, there was plenty of time for good times, and I ensured there was plenty of time for my girl. And time we had. Time for fun. Times to cherish. Things could not be more perfect. And after being so scared they were lost to Aria, I made sure all those memories we shared were there to reminisce over. And, that is what we had done. Doing exactly as I had suggested to her when trying to bring those memories back while sitting within the hospital, and going for a break in her cabin. The cabin that meant so much to her. But also to us. The place we met... Giving us a chance to have some time together. While remembering the time we had met.

She wished that he would live peacefully without her. Then she blew out the candle. She cleared out the final traces of her existence in the house. All that was left behind in the house she had spent more than a decade in were three items: a bank card with ten million dollars deposited inside that was meant to repay Cleo’s kindness over the years, a wedding gift meant to wish him a wonderful life with his lover and at last, a letter of farewell. “Uncle Cleo, I give up. I wish you nothing but happiness.”

If I had, I never would've let him get near Sadie. I was actually confident that Sadie would never forget me. Seven years together wasn't something she could just forget. But it was that very confidence that cost me everything. I thought it'd be like before. All I had to do was wait a few days, and she'd forget again. I wouldn't even have to coax her back. But just that one time, everything changed. If I could turn back time to that day, I'd never have made that bet with my friends. I'd never have said those things I didn't mean.