Mind games

There is a shape in her memory where a person should be.

Akilah remembers the weather. The words. The exact color of the sky the day the world turned to stone. She remembers everything about her last hours as herself, except him. Whoever he was, he's gone from her the way a name goes missing from the tip of your tongue, except it never comes back. Just an ache with no face to put to it.

She wakes three thousand seven hundred years later in the hands of a man who wants to own her mind, then finds herself free in the arms of strangers who look at her like she owes them tears she doesn't have.

And then there is Senku, quiet, brilliant, careful with his hands and terrified of his own heart, who remembers every single thing she's lost. Who has spent longer than any person should grieving a woman who is standing right in front of him, close enough to touch, and doesn't know his name.

He was in the middle of telling her he loved her when the sky fell.

He's still not finished saying it.

Some people search for who they used to be. Akilah is searching for someone else's memory of her, and the only man who can hand it back to her is the one too afraid to speak.

(Disclaimer: I do not own or have created the background art for this; it was found on Pinterest @Richify. I did not use AI to generate ideas, story plotlines, or the cover itself.)