My Dear Annabelle

Chapter - 11 A Broken Memory

Kuea's eyes fluttered open, heavy and slow, as if waking from a long, unsettling dream. His entire body felt weighted, his limbs sluggish and his head pounding in rhythm with his heartbeat.

The faint light filtering through the curtains of his room seemed to blur at the edges, but the familiar outlines of his bed, desk, and walls eventually came into focus.

"Not again," Kuea whispered, a tremor of fear threading through his voice.

He found himself lying on the floor, face-down against the cold wood. How did he end up here.

The last thing he remembered was sitting alone on the basketball court at school, contemplating the day.

Yet, everything after that was a void, a dense fog that clouded his thoughts.

Kuea winced as he pushed himself up, his body protesting the movement. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he tried to shake off the disorientation that clung to him like a shadow.

His mind felt foggy, and he struggled to assemble the fragments of his memory. It was like trying to piece together a puzzle where half of the pieces were missing.

"How many times now?" he muttered under his breath, a mix of frustration and fear. "Five? Six? I've lost count."

These lapses, these moments of lost time, were becoming more frequent, and Kuea had no explanation. He couldn't even remember how he had come home. It was as if his mind was betraying him, erasing parts of his life at random.

"Why can't I remember?" His voice cracked, a helplessness creeping into his tone. He felt his throat tighten with fear, and for a moment, he just sat there, staring at the floor, gripping the edge of the bed.

The sense of something being deeply, irrevocably wrong was stronger than ever. He had known for some time now that this wasn't normal.

These blackouts, these gaps in his memory... they weren't just from stress or exhaustion. Something darker was happening inside him, and he was terrified to confront it.

More than that, he was terrified to tell anyone.

"This can't keep happening." His voice trembled, barely above a whisper. "I'm losing myself, piece by piece."

Kuea tried to focus, to remember anything about what had happened after school, but it was useless. His mind was a blank slate, as though entire hours had been stolen from him.

"How long before I forget everything?" His voice wavered, filled with a quiet desperation. "How long before I forget who I am?"

The thought terrified him. Kuea wasn't just forgetting moments... he was forgetting himself, and the worst part was that he didn't even know why.

Was he sick? Was he losing his mind? He hadn't dared to voice these thoughts to anyone, least of all his mother. How could he even begin to explain this?

Kuea stood up shakily, feeling lightheaded as he made his way to the window. Pulling back the curtain slightly, he stared out at the darkening sky.

The evening was settling in, casting a quiet gloom over the street outside.

He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, closing his eyes for a moment, wishing he could turn back time, somehow undo whatever had gone wrong.

But where would he even start? He didn't have any answers, just questions that gnawed at him endlessly.

"I'm broken," he whispered to himself, his voice almost inaudible. "Something's wrong with me... and I don't even know how to fix it."

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