The biting cold of October greeted me when I opened my eyes.
It wasn't morning.
I wasn't in my bed.
In fact, I wasn't anywhere I could recognize.
My name is Jack Reynolds and, at that moment, that was the only certainty I had.
I found myself standing in the middle of Blackwood Park, the main tourist attraction of Saint John. The city's characteristic fog curled around the ancient trees, transforming them into ghostly silhouettes. The distant clock tower marked 3:22 in the morning.
The last thing I remembered was being in my apartment at 9 PM, reviewing reports on the Evans case - a simple jewelry theft I had solved that afternoon. I had made a sandwich, opened a beer, and then...
Nothing. An absolute void where four hours of memories should have been.
My fingers were cold, but not from the autumn weather. I looked at my hands and froze. There was dirt under my nails. On my left wrist, a small dark stain that looked like dried blood.
"Not again," I muttered into the night air, my breath forming small clouds.
This wasn't my first "episode," as I clinically called them, trying to distance myself from the terror I truly felt. The memory lapses had started three years ago, after a particularly brutal case that my colleagues on the police force quietly referred to as "The Harrison Case." The case that transformed me from an ordinary police officer into a respected detective, but that also exacted a price I was still paying.
In the beginning, they were just minutes lost. One moment I was brushing my teeth, the next I had finished showering, with no recollection of the process. Over time, the lapses expanded. An hour here, two there. My psychiatrist, Dr. Sarah Klein, diagnosed it as dissociative amnesia caused by trauma.
But this episode was different. I had never "awakened" outside my home before. Never in a deserted park at three in the morning.
Checking my pockets, I found my wallet, badge, and phone. At least I hadn't lost anything. I unlocked the phone, hoping to find missed calls, concerned messages - any indication that someone had noticed my disappearance.
The screen was clean.
I was about to call a taxi when I noticed something stuck in the inner pocket of my coat. I pulled out the strange object and my heart skipped a beat.
It was a small braided leather bracelet with colorful beads. It looked handmade, probably by a child. On the inside, three letters written with permanent marker: M.A.K.
The air escaped from my lungs as if I'd been punched.
M.A.K. Megan Alice Keller.
The twelve-year-old girl who had disappeared three days ago while returning from school. The case that the entire Saint John police force was investigating. The case I had just taken over that morning.
With trembling fingers, I pocketed the bracelet and dialed the number I knew by heart.
"Hayes," my chief's sleepy voice answered after several rings.
"Robert, it's me, Jack."
"Reynolds? It's three-thirty in the morning, what the hell..."
"I had another episode," I interrupted, without beating around the bush. Robert was one of the few who knew about my condition. "I woke up in Blackwood Park. And... I found something."
The silence on the other end of the line lasted two seconds longer than it should have.
"Don't move," he finally replied, his voice now completely awake. "I'm on my way. And Jack? Don't touch anything. Don't talk to anyone."
The call ended before I could say anything else.
While I waited, I tried to mentally reconstruct the night, searching for any fragment of memory, any clue about how I had gotten there. But it was like facing a black, impenetrable wall.
Twenty minutes later, headlights cut through the fog. Robert's black sedan stopped at the park entrance. He got out alone, which surprised me.
"You didn't call a team?" I asked when he approached.
Robert Hayes was 47, prematurely gray-haired, with the kind of wrinkles around his eyes that only come after decades of facing the worst of humanity. We had a friendship that predated my transfer to Saint John seven years ago.
"First we need to understand what we have here," he replied, his eyes assessing my condition. "Are you okay?"
"Physically, yes."
"What did you find?"
I hesitated, then took the bracelet from my pocket and handed it to him. Robert examined it under his flashlight.
"Megan Keller," he muttered.
"Yes. And I have dirt under my nails. And this," I showed the stain on my wrist, "looks like blood."
Robert stared at me for a long time, his expression unreadable. Finally, he sighed.
"Let's take a walk around the park. Show me exactly where you 'woke up.'"
We walked in silence to the spot where I had regained consciousness. The location had nothing special about it - just an open area between some ancient oak trees.
"There's nothing here," I commented.
"Not now," Robert replied enigmatically. He was looking at the ground, as if searching for something. "Jack, how are your episodes lately? Has the frequency increased?"
The question caught me off guard. "Yes, in the last few weeks. I spoke with Dr. Klein about adjusting my medication."
Robert nodded distractedly, still examining the ground. Suddenly, he crouched down and pointed his flashlight at a specific spot.
"Look at this."
I approached. On the ground, partially hidden under dry leaves, there was a small mark. It wasn't natural - it seemed to have been engraved in the earth. A strange symbol, like a stylized eye inside a circle.
"What is this?" I asked.
Robert got up quickly. "Probably nothing. Kids playing."
Something in his voice sounded false. For a brief moment, I had the strange feeling that Robert knew much more than he was saying.
"And the bracelet?" I insisted. "We need to start a search. If Megan was here..."
"I'll take care of it in the morning," he interrupted me. "Now, I'm going to take you home. You need to rest."
"Robert, a missing girl..."
"Jack," his voice hardened. "Do you trust me? Then go home. Take your medication. Sleep. Tomorrow we'll deal with this officially."
There was a tone in his voice that left no room for argument. I nodded reluctantly and followed him back to the car.
During the silent journey to my apartment, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong. Not just with the case, or with my increasingly frequent episodes, but with the city of Saint John itself.
What I didn't know then was that that night marked only the beginning. The beginning of a descent into an abyss of secrets that would forever transform my understanding of myself, of reality, and of the terrible price some must pay to keep the world safe from horrors that humanity is not prepared to face.
I also didn't know that, in less than 24 hours, a mysterious detective named Olivia Bennett would enter my life, bringing with her the keys to an enigma that spanned centuries.
And that, somewhere in the shadows of my fragmented mind, something ancient and patient was watching, waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.