> Here's how Gacrux dies: painfully and not suddenly enough. It's enough of one thing and not enough of the other that he can't quite bring himself to remember it at all.

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Amice seemed to know exactly where it was that he'd been killed. Not that it was difficult to find, with all the bloodstains splattered on the road. He stood awkwardly to the side as Amice squatted to get a better look at the gore.

Gacrux clearly hadn't had the chance to look at the physical consequences of his death before this. The site must have been recreated from someone else's memory. A cop, or more likely a reporter's, considering the high level of detail but pointed lack of police tape. "How does this place pick whose memory to project?" He wonders aloud.

"The Mneme reflects the stronger memory, be it determined by observational detail or emotional weight, and fills in the blanks from people with similar memories. Mandela effect is a real bitch here," Amice pokes at the edge of the stain with her bare fingers. She glares up at him incredulously. "Is this doing nothing for you?"

How was he to know the mechanisms in which the exploded remains of his brains worked? If he had any brain matter left at all, it would be an unwanted miracle if it could even produce the chemical cocktail needed for the emotional response Amice seemed to be expecting. He makes a face. Awfully manipulative of her to rely on the trauma of his death to induce a response from the Mneme.

"Maybe there's a lag. I literally just died. You could just ask me about it, you know."

"Maybe I've been on my own for so long that it just didn't occur to me. After all, the Mneme has always done as it will, regardless of whether I want to see it." She drawls a little too insincerely.

If Amice held so much weight in how this world worked, then she probably wanted something from his raw untampered memory. Well, too bad for her. He wasn't in the mood to relive his last moments.

If he wanted to test the truth of Amice's words about this world, there were still plenty of other moments he wouldn't mind reliving. And how convenient, they were already in the right area.

The thought barely arises before the scene lightens up, monochrome winter skies opening up into a cheerful summer evening. A memory from just a few months ago. Summer break, the only period his sister had too much free time on her hands. And he would know better than most that a bored teenager made for a reckless one.

The road darkens and glistens, reflecting peach pink from the setting sun, wet from a sudden shower that had briefly passed. The sound of traffic and chatter blanketed the empty roads. The calls of street promoters were drowned out by energetic music, drums and chants, the road having been closed to make way for performers and pedestrians. Festive lanterns swung between the street lamps in the light breeze, decorated stalls draped in heavy canvas canopies lined the sidewalk, the street filled with throngs of people. At a closer look, all the faces he caught a glance of seemed a little familiar, the same way dreams tended to involve faces of people you've seen before. Yet another point to the 'this is a hallucination' theory.

Letting the crowd of festival goers flow around him, Gacrux easily remembers being uncharacteristically late that day because he'd felt uncomfortable in his initial outfit and had gone back to change. He looked down at himself to see if his current outfit had changed and did a double take. Amice, still squatting in the middle of the road with a satisfied tilt of her chin, was smiling like a cheshire up at him.

"Do you believe in fate, boy?"

With that ominously cryptic question, the sky finally melts from pastel pinks to the dark indigo of the evening. Between the settling darkness and the swelling crowd, in the space between bodies he loses sight of his Virgil.

Perhaps he should have questioned her motives immediately instead of playing conversational mine sweeper. But the woman had always enjoyed being an evasive shit. He was never going to get a straight answer out of her from the beginning.

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Frustrated, he scans the crowd for his wayward companion.

A bony hand reaches from the crowd and grabs his arm.

"Shit, what are you standing around like an idiot for! Get me out of this damn crowd before I suffocate."

Jumping out of his skin, he whips around to see his smart ass sister in all her youthful crassness, just as sweaty and irritated as he remembered that day. Heart-shaped pimple patches, tape-wrapped glasses and a scowl like he was scum of the earth for making her navigate this swamped summer festival. His heart melts and soars simultaneously, fondness and pride manifesting outwardly as exasperation.

"Ah right. Sorry to make you go through this again Imai," he swallows down the thickness in his voice. His sister hated crowds as much as he did but in his memories, all he'd done was snap back with equal impatience.

"Shut up. Let's just go before the place closes." She sulks, following along the script of his memories like he hadn't already deviated from it.

Maybe it was the notion that none of this could be real. The fact that in reality, he'd left this still snot-nosed kid all alone to navigate the same shark-infested waters of life that had plagued him at the same age. Maybe it was courage from the fact that the person in question wasn't around to hear it. Maybe it was just a fleeting moment of loneliness. But he surprises himself when he blurts out, "Missed you too, dipshit."

His sister clicks her tongue and quickly turns to walk down the street at a brisk pace. "I said shut up, man. Mind your own."

Dread rose like a tidal wave and he was stuck neck deep in the shoreline. The Mneme was a realm that projected memories into the world like an elaborate VR simulation. It begged the question of what exactly were the limits he himself could change in his surroundings.

There was a difference between recall and one's imagination.

He recalls the beats of this conversation the first time around. She was taking her anger out on him for something that happened while she'd been waiting. The original lines of his script were as such: 'Did your foster find out about the scholarship?' He shuffled around for ways to bait her into a different response as he catches up with her pace.

"That superhero manga you made me read- the blonde you liked dies in next week's chapter," he says, bracing for the unfiltered rage of a mildly inconvenienced pre-teen.

It doesn't come. At least, not in any way that matters.

"As a responsible and emotionally discerning adult," the dork winds up for a melodramatic rant. Her use of fancy big girl words were a sure sign of hiding something. Except he already knew what she was hiding. He's heard this conversation before. "I'd appreciate if you respect my choice to ignore this topic indefinitely. Please try again when I'm not fuck off pissed at you for being late!"

It takes him off guard. The memory continued like half a song playing from only one side of an ear bud. It didn't seem to matter if he replied, said anything different, or stayed quiet. He waved a hand over her face, flicked her glasses, messed her hair, all to no effect. Everything reset as soon as he stopped touching it.

The rhythm of half a conversation drones over him, forced to listen numbly as his sister responded like a recording.

He follows her robotically, mostly out of lack of other places to go. It occurs to him that the city was a potential minefield of distressing memories that he didn't want to re-experience and his sister was associated with a lot less violence in his mind. The incident of his death notwithstanding.

Here's how Gacrux dies: painfully and not suddenly enough. It's enough of one thing and not enough of the other that he can't quite bring himself to remember it at all.

Here's how this day was supposed to go, a memory secreted within his brain and cherished like a lucky charm:

Gacrux would have needled and goaded Imai into taking out most of her aggression on him before they reached their destination. They would have arrived at a popular desserts cafe, one of those on the fancier side that were on trend as soon as they opened. The kind of hipster spot where drinks tended to cost just as much as the food. Imai would have met his struggling friends in person for the first time, would have introduced herself as her internet handle and immediately gotten embarrassed about it. Would have blushed like a pepper as soon as his friends brought out the desert set they'd ordered to celebrate her successful scholarship. They would've all ended up cheerfully sharing the whole thing anyway, because Imai was a stubborn brat and awfully convincing when she had to be. As expected of a kid who had the guts to dream about being a lawyer even if she hadn't anyone who could support her.

Imai enters the cafe and Gacrux pauses at the entrance. Sees his hopeless trio of friends look up at them and gets stuck.

He might have been wrong. Reliving his death might have been easier. He didn't want to relive this memory like a play. Not when he had no way of knowing if they were safe in reality. His friends usually hung out near the area he'd been shot. They could have been targeted. Gacrux just wouldn't be able to know now that he was dead.

The door closes in his face.

Through the window, he sees the people he cared for act out the play of his memories without him. His head is empty when he turns away.

Outside, the festival continues along the street, unheeding of his turmoil.

It seemed even his memories didn't require his active participation to go on.

He can't decide if that was upsetting or comforting.