September 21st, 9:45 AM - Veridion University Archives
Ash hadn't expected to find anything. It was a stray thought at first, an itch at the back of his mind the kind that doesn't go away no matter how much you try to ignore it. Something about Vincent Darren wasn't sitting right. Not just the fact that no one remembered him, not just the way his name had surfaced from the book like a fragment of something long buried but the creeping feeling that this had happened before.
That someone else had been erased.
He found himself in the university archives without consciously deciding to go there, standing between towering shelves of forgotten records. The air was heavier than it should have been, thick with something beyond dust and time, as if the past itself had settled in this place, unwilling to be disturbed.
His eyes moved instinctively over the labels. The past students' records were supposed to be meticulous, carefully logged and preserved. Yet, as he reached the section where Vincent's file should have been, a strange sensation crawled over his skin.
A gap.
The shelves were orderly, the years arranged in perfect succession except for one break. A hole in the sequence, a jagged interruption where a year's worth of files should have been. Ash's fingers twitched as he ran them over the empty space. The dust had settled too evenly, as if nothing had ever been there at all.
But someone had been.
At the center of the gap, almost too obvious in its placement, was a single folded sheet of paper, yellowed at the edges, like an afterthought. Or a warning.
He hesitated, then picked it up.
The paper crackled as he unfolded it, the ink slightly smudged but still legible. One name stood out against the emptiness.
"Vincent Darren. Last seen September 21st"
A slow, cold breath left Ash's lips.
Today was September 21st.
Not a coincidence. A repetition. A cycle.
Beneath the name, something else was scrawled in rough, uneven strokes. A symbol looped, jagged, almost incomplete. He had seen it before.
In the book.
His heartbeat steadied, controlled, but his grip on the paper tightened. This wasn't just a forgotten student. This was a pattern.
He stood there for a moment longer, mind turning over the implications. If Vincent Darren had been erased so thoroughly, how much else had been rewritten? How much could be changed before no one was left to notice? And, more importantly, why had he been able to remember?
The thought settled in his gut like a lead weight. This wasn't just some odd inconsistency, some administrative error or forgotten student record. This was deliberate. Someone had gone through the effort of not just removing Vincent's existence but making sure no one would ever question it.
Except Ash had. And that meant something.
11:30 AM - Campus Library
The librarian's stare lingered on Ash longer than usual as he entered. Her hands remained still on the desk, fingers poised just above the keyboard.
Ash walked to the reference section, pulling out a stack of old newspapers, flipping through them with increasing urgency. There had to be something some trace of Vincent Darren that hadn't been erased.
Then, he found it.
A small clipping buried in the corner of an old article. A missing student report.
Vincent Darren, psychology major, 21 years old. Disappeared without a trace.
The details were sparse. No signs of struggle. No known enemies. No reason to leave. Just... gone.
And at the bottom of the article, in small, faded print, a quote from a professor at the time:
"Some students vanish, and we grieve. Others disappear, and it's as if they were never here at all."
Ash swallowed hard, the weight of the words settling like iron in his chest. The feeling of control he always prided himself on the ability to predict, to manipulate felt distant, slipping between his fingers.
He turned his head slightly, glancing toward the librarian. She hadn't moved. Her fingers still hovered above the keyboard, as if waiting.
"Vincent Darren," Ash said, voice steady. "Do you remember him?"
She blinked. Once. Slowly. "That name does not belong here."
His fingers clenched around the paper. "But he was here. He was a student. There was a record"
"There is no record," she interrupted. "There never was."
A long silence stretched between them. The hum of the lights overhead buzzed in Ash's ears, a static undercurrent to the growing unease settling in his gut.
"Then why do I remember?" he asked quietly.
The librarian's lips barely moved, but Ash caught the whisper as she spoke:
"Because you weren't supposed to."
The lights flickered. A cold gust slithered through the aisles, rattling the shelves as if something had just moved past them. Ash didn't turn around. He didn't want to see what might be standing there.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown Number.
He let out a slow exhale, flipping the newspaper shut. He had his answer. Not the one he wanted, but the only one he was going to get here.
Ash could have walked away. He should have. But that's not who he was.
The world ran on control on people pulling invisible strings, manipulating others for their own ends. That's what he had always believed. That's what had always kept him ahead.
But this? This was something else entirely. This was control at a level he didn't understand. Someone or something had rewritten reality itself, carving out people like they had never existed. And that idea gnawed at him, unsettled him in a way nothing else had.
Because if reality could erase someone like Vincent Darren... what else could it erase? Could it erase him?
And beyond that
If something had this kind of power, then someone had to be behind it. Someone had to be pulling the strings.
Ash had spent his life reading people, twisting their actions to suit his needs. But now, he wasn't the one in control. Something else was.
And Ash Mercier didn't like being controlled.
That's why he wasn't letting this go.
The rational side of him told him to stop to let it go before he found himself tangled in something far bigger than he could handle. But then, wasn't that the problem? He was already tangled in it. Whether he wanted to be or not.
The more he thought about it, the more absurd it became. A student, erased from existence? A librarian who knew but refused to speak? A book that shouldn't exist? If someone had told him this story a month ago, he would have laughed in their face. Hell, he still wanted to laugh now. But the evidence sat right there in his pocket, folded neatly a newspaper clipping of a student who was never supposed to be remembered.
So either he was losing his mind, or the world around him wasn't as stable as he thought.
And honestly? He wasn't sure which was worse.
Vincent Darren had been erased.
And Ash was next in line to disappear.
But he wasn't going to let that happen.
He took the newspaper clipping, folded it neatly, and tucked it into his pocket. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the library, past the unmoving librarian, past the watching shadows, stepping into the cold, unyielding city beyond.
If someone had erased Vincent Darren, then they had made a mistake. Because Ash Mercier was going to find them.
And this time, he would not be erased.