Something was gnawing at me, a persistent itch at the back of my mind that I couldn't quite scratch. Or rather, it was that subconscious part of me that specialised in making a lot of noise without providing any clear explanation as to why. It felt like a relentless drumbeat, warning of some unseen peril. The part of me was swinging a fucking enormous red flag, but I didn't have the faintest idea what had it so rowdy.
Jeeves, the interface with my subconscious, was equally baffled. He knew something was bothering me, but he was having no more luck pinning down what it was than I was. It was as if we were both looking at a puzzle with too many missing pieces to see the full picture, and the box was missing. Each attempt to delve deeper was met with the same frustrating dead end. It wasn't like Jeeves to be stumped; he was usually the one with the keen insights and the succinct analyses. This wasn't making any sense.
We went through the usual protocols, scanning recent memories and current events, but everything seemed in order on the surface. My encounters, my tasks, my thoughts--they all seemed mundane, routine even. Well, as routine as things could get in my life. It was organised chaos at best, but there were no glaring holes in it. Yet, the uneasy feeling persisted, the issue lurking just out of sight, tauntingly close but perpetually out of reach. The dissonance was infuriating. If we didn't figure it out soon, it was going to drive me out of my goddamned mind.
I was forgetting something.
It was hard to put into words. It was like catching a fleeting movement out of the corner of your eye, something just at the edge of your vision that disappeared the moment you focused on it. Or like walking into a room with a purpose only to have the reason slip through your fingers like smoke. It was akin to driving to work with a persistent nagging feeling that you had forgotten something crucial yet not being able to recall what it was. Or suspecting that someone was lying to you but having no concrete evidence to back up your instincts.
There was something there, something just out of reach, whispering at the edges of my consciousness. I knew something was amiss; I could feel the void where a piece of vital information should be. But because I didn't know what it was, I had no idea what to look for, much less where to start searching. It was maddeningly elusive, a quiet gnaw at the back of my mind that refused to subside.
This lingering unease carried with it an irritating sense of urgency, a constant itch that I couldn't scratch. Every attempt to focus on it only seemed to make it slip further away. Each moment, it grew more insistent, like a faint, incessant noise you can't quite locate. The feeling that something was hidden from me, something important, gnawed at my sanity. Without context, without direction, it was like trying to navigate a maze blindfolded.
There was no way to undersell how disorienting and confusing this was. My entire sense of reality felt skewed, as if the ground beneath my feet had shifted imperceptibly yet irrevocably. The only other time I could remember feeling this profoundly lost was immediately after the crash, waking up with no memory of the accident or anything that had transpired during the eight weeks I had been unconscious. Those eight weeks were a black void in my memory, my new reality - my new life - had been born that night, everything I had become had started the night I got into that cab with Moe, and it was gone forever.
In fact, throughout my entire life, those eight weeks remained the only span of time that I could not recall: from the point of leaving the pub to the moment I regained consciousness in the hospital. It was as if that segment of my life had been surgically excised from my mind. The same unsettling clarity applied here. Whatever it was that I was missing now wasn't something so trivial as forgetting to lock a door or to call someone--a simple oversight easily rectified. This was different. This was a significant piece of my reality that had simply vanished, leaving my mind to grapple with its absence, its whole existence acknowledged only by the haunting awareness of it not being there..
My thoughts spiraled as I tried to latch on to some thread of understanding, but it was like grasping at smoke or catching a glimpse of a shadow of something that wasn't there to cast it. The loss felt like both a physical ache and an existential dread. It was as if my mind was continually trying to calibrate itself, continuously blinking errors flashing on an internal system I had no control over.
Would this missing piece ever return? Or was it gone forever, an irretrievable fragment of my past that would always leave a jagged scar on my psyche? The fear of lost potential, of forgotten dangers or missed opportunities, was almost paralyzing. Every neuron in my brain seemed to be on high alert, perpetually scanning itself for clues that might lead me back to whatever it was I had lost.
This was a different kind of horror, one that didn't come from external threats but from within. It was the fear of the unknown, the terror of a blank slate where there should be memories, where there should be certainty. The more I tried to push against the boundaries of this void, the more resilient it seemed. The empty space where that crucial memory should have resided was both a puzzle and a taunt, daring me to uncover its secrets while simultaneously hiding in the shadows of my mind.
The problem was that I had an almost photographic memory. There was practically nothing I couldn't remember. Details, faces, conversations--everything stayed imprinted in my mind with unfailing clarity. Forgetting to turn off the stove or losing track of why I had walked into a room were experiences foreign to me now. Such lapses simply didn't happen anymore. My memory was a fortress, impenetrable and ever-reliable.
Nor did I find myself second-guessing whether I was being lied to. My power-enhanced intuition, coupled with my ability to literally read human minds, made deception nearly impossible to slip past me.
And yet, despite this formidable mental acuity, there was that nagging, gnawing voice in my head that wouldn't shut the fuck up. It was relentless, persisting in the face of my otherwise impeccable recall and perception. No matter how much assurance my memory offered or how logically I dissected the situation, this disquieting sensation refused to leave me alone.
Something had slipped through the gaps of my memory that simply shouldn't exist.
I was missing something.
I was missing something important. Something my subconscious mind was trying to tell me, and for reasons I couldn't quite explain, it had something to do with Evie.
It wasn't a suspicion; Charlotte and I had run our tests on her, and she had passed with flying colors. Hell, that had been done a few days after New Year's in the cottage. Since then, I had trusted her implicitly, and she had given me no reason at all to change my mind. It wasn't Evie herself, but...
Something she reminded me of?
Something she had done that sparked something?
Something she had said?
When had this feeling started? The truth was, I had been so consumed with my self-pity and my relentless hunt for revenge that I hadn't even noticed its insidious onset until the last few weeks. My mind had been a battlefield, overrun with thoughts of retribution and wallowing in my own grievances, leaving little room for introspection.
The feeling wasn't intensifying, yet it refused to dissipate, clinging stubbornly to the corners of my mind. It was like an unwelcome guest that overstayed its visit, lingering long after its presence should have been forgotten. This persistence only served to irritate me further. Every time I tried to focus or lose myself in my goals, there it was, an ever-present thorn in my thoughts, demanding acknowledgment.
Its refusal to fuck the fuck off was driving me to the brink of madness. It was a low, constant hum, an unending drone of unease that undermined my every recent action and thought. No matter how fiercely I pursued my objectives, seeking solace in the rush of vindication or the depths of my self-justified war, the feeling persisted, gnawing at the edges of my resolve.
