Remember me...

              Her hands shook as she moved the cup from the microwave to the counter. The teabag bobbed on the surface of water that was not quite hot enough. Her breath came in staccato little gasps, not strong enough to take in the aroma. She would remember. She had to remember. The tea, it was his favorite. Wasn’t it?

              She darted a glance out the window, but no one was there. No one was ever there. The street was empty. Cracks streaked the pavement and spilled over with weeds. Of course, the weeds still grew. They made her nervous, the way they twisted in the sun, the way they spiked out from the crumbling pavement. Sometimes they flowered. That was even worse. She didn’t know what to make of the flowers.

              Her heart thrummed in her chest, the same hyperactive pace it had beat at for too long to remember now. Someone told her once that everyone only got a certain number of heartbeats. Surely, she’d nearly reached her max at this pace? She took a few shaky breaths, willing her heart to slow down. She took a sip of the tea and spat it back out into the sink.

              No, no, no. That wasn’t it at all. He couldn’t have liked this tea. It was vile.

              The days were too long. It was a long time before the sun would set again. Her fingernails absently searched for cuticles that were already gone, picked away and red and swollen.

              Remember me.

              That’s what he’d said. Yes, of course, she remembered him. He was… tall? With… brown hair? Yes, that must have been it. She loved him. How could she forget the one she loved?

              She turned to face the ruin of a house that spread out behind her. It was a strange place to live, she thought, with the walls all torn apart and the furniture scattered about as if tossed from a tornado. She supposed that was how he liked it. The sofa was fully upside-down, forming an A shape against the ground. She sat down at the peak and sipped her tea. It was tasty, wasn’t it?

              There was something she was supposed to do.

              Remember me.

              A tickling in her perception drew her attention to the garden. She scooted forward and slid down the angled side of the sofa on her butt, the tea sloshing over and burning her hand a little.

              Don’t.

              She looked outside though the screen door that hung sideways off one hinge and saw… nothing.

              Her heartbeat had begun to slow down, and with it her mind seemed to be clearing. She looked down at the teacup in her hands. It reminded her… of what? She frowned at the brown water, rippling in tiny waves from her shaking hands.

              Why was she shaking? She felt… scared, she realized with a start.

              Her head jerked back to the screen door.

              Nothing. There was… simply nothing. Her heartbeat began to spike again, her brain unable to make sense of what lay—or what didn’t lay—before her. How could you look at nothing? It wasn’t black, it wasn’t white, it wasn’t big or small. It was nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.

              She dropped the teacup and let it shatter on the floor. She glanced down at the pieces and saw ceramic shards scattered all around her feet. Shards in the dark blue hue of the teacup she’d been holding, but also shards that were white with little green flowers, lightest purple, brown with stripes through it, plain white with fragments of letters on the pieces. So many teacups, shattered. Right here, in this one spot. Like someone had stood here, just as she had and dropped their teacup too.

              She staggered backward, ceramic shards crunching under her feet. Had she not walked through them to get to the door a moment ago? Did she not notice them then?

              Remember.

              Someone told her that. Her heartbeat was spiking again. She had to remember. Many someones had said that word to her. Remember remember remember.

              She tried to think back, but the longest time she could remember back to was… the microwave. She ran back to the kitchen and stopped. She stared at the empty space on the counter where the microwave had been. She blinked.

              Where did it go? Where was the… what was it called?

              She frowned. It was only a countertop. Of course it was empty. It had always been empty. Had she been looking for something? She felt calm. No, there was nothing there. Nothing…

              Remember me, the voice whispered in her mind.

              Her chest spiked with pain as an image flashed through her mind. A man. Tall with brown hair crusted with blood. She held his face between her hands. She was crying. They had told her it would come to this. It was her fault they were all gone.

              Don’t, he formed the word through cracked and bleeding lips.

              Her body was shaking violently. It was too much. They had told her it was too much power for one person. She’d thought she could save him. She’d thought—no, she closed off her mind. She couldn’t think of anything. She had to clear her mind.

              Remember, he said.

              She screamed, her insides were shattering.

              Me, he said. His voice made no sound, just a breath of air on the wind, a shape of the lips.

              She remembered everything. The world broke around her.

              Don’t remember me, he pleaded to the wind. But it was too late. She looked down at her hands where she’d clutched his dying face, but there was nothing there. Her bloodstained hands held the air and nothing more. Nothing. Nothing.

              Nothing filled her until she was brimming with it.

              She opened her eyes to the sound of beeping.

              Her hands shook as she moved the cup from the microwave to the counter. Her heartbeat was calm as she looked out onto an empty street crisscrossed with weeds.