[ UNWRITTEN # 7 - MEMORIES ] 

"Piper?" 

Piper Rosaline Montero opens her eyes to see a girl smiling at her, for she had fallen asleep upon the edge of the field. the sun dawns down on her as the girl smiled and helped her up. 

"Loren?" Piper calls out, and the girl hums in reply. "Gaano katagal na ako nakatulog?" she asks, and Loren smiles patiently at her. 

"About ten minutes or so. Tara na? Naghihintay na sila Kael." 

Piper purses her lips as she stares at the girl's nape, wondering why this scene feels foreign to her even if she knows that this is just her memories—is Loren supposed to be here?

Wait…

“Loren,” Piper called out again, her breath shaky and disturbed as she grabbed the girl’s wrist and turned her back to face her. The girl smiles at her patiently, wondering what’s wrong. “Your name is Loren, right?” she asks, a little too desperate sounding as the girl nodded at that.

“Piper, bakit—”

“H-Hindi pa naman kita nakikita before,” Piper says, gritting her teeth as she pushes the girl back. “I… You’re not part of my friend group in college. How are you—”

“Piper, you must have just forgotten me. Matagal nang panahon iyon, right?” she says, and somehow with those words her name does not sound foreign in her lips like earlier. The confused girl just nods at that, deciding to not push any further as she must have just been confused by the weird dream she had. 

Dream?

What dream?

She remembers it to be filled by smoke, by fire and those monsters—

“Piper, watch your step. Baka madapa ka.” sagot ni Loren, at tumango ulit si Piper habang nilalandas nila ang daan patungo sa pinaghihintayan ng mga kaibigan nila. Tinitigan niya ng mabuti ang sahig, taking care not to fall as she feels like she is too drunk to even walk normally when she hasn’t even taken a sip of the godforsaken drink.

Or did she? 

Hindi niya matandaan.

What’s important is the fact that Hades University seems so bigger now than what she remembers, and this woman leads her into a room she had not seen before even with her years of endless discovery and exploring of its walls. She chalks it up to her current forgetful state and moves on.

“Careful,” Loren says, as she opens the door and reveals all the people she’s known in this life—including one she wonders why she could see here.

“Riley,” Piper says, and the small girl looks up at her in wonder while being embroiled in another one of Kael’s card games, and somehow everything seems so… normal 

“A-Akala ko ba magquit ka na for your music producing career—”

“Anong music producing?” Riley says with a laugh, and the laugh emanates through her system, threatening to let the anxiety and unknown feelings out of her heart as she stares at Riley’s amused eyes. “Piper, have you forgotten that I chose law?” 

No.

Piper’s sure of that.

Riley never wanted law, and she made the biggest decision to quit school even against all odds. 

So why is she saying that she chose law?

And why is she here—

“Nga pala, Piper, meet my girlfriend,” Riley says, and in an odd twist of events she pulls forward the girl that Piper swears she could not recognize; Loren steps forward besides her, and Piper wonders if she’s going insane.

“Loren Hontiveros, my artist girlfriend.” 

No, that’s certainly wrong.

I feel like it’s wrong—

“Teka… Teka lang, kakausapin ko lang yung pinsan ko—”

“Ha, anong pinsan?” She hears Jillian say, placing an ace of spades upon the table which she sees momentarily, as if time stops whenever she isn’t focusing on something else. “Piper, have you forgotten na wala ka namang pinsan? Anong nangyayari sa’yo—”

“No—you—” Piper stutters out as she backs away, her friends then moving forward to chase after her and she could see the wonder in their eyes like it’s natural for them—

“Maddie,” she says out of the blue, somehow remembering that name out of all the false ones that gets embedded in her mind during this strange mirage, “Maddie, don’t ing play with me!” 

Umalingawngaw ang malakas niyang pagsigaw sa loob ng maliit na kwarto kung nasaan sila, at kita niya na biglang nawala ang kahit anong emosyon sa mukha ng mga nasa harapan niya, replaced by those cloudy eyes she’s seen in those monsters that wrecked the familiar version of Hades University in her mind.

Their faces slowly changed into something sinister, fleshing out and blood flecking their lips but nobody moved—at least not yet.

“You’re incredibly resilient,” a voice says, but it does not come from the zombified version of her friends that stand guard like this, as if waiting for the order to strike and kill her right there. “Your friends are succumbing to this mirage I crafted myself and yet you sensed something was wrong from the start.” 

“Might I ask,” the voice says, and Piper shivers as she feels that the voice resonates through her very soul. “What was it that gave me away?” 

“Loren,” Piper said, letting out a sigh as she wondered if this mirage would ever end. “Hindi ko naman nakasama si Loren nung college—you got Riley’s part right, but she did not take law and just quit entirely. And you…” Piper trailed off, letting out a sigh as a small chuckle was heard next.

“And I what? Tell me, so I can kill you effectively the next time, Piper.” 

“ you.” Piper says, knowing that this isn’t real and that she can get out of this if she plays her cards perfectly and also gets information with this.

“There are others like you, right?” Piper asks, and one’s eyes upon the group turns red—Loren steps from the line they had in this mirage, a grin upon her lips.

“Out of everyone in all of your memories, I’ve always found Loren Hontiveros to be the fairest of them all, but I like to think that no one would be as fairest as me.” Maddie says, using her own voice while she’s in Loren’s body as she moves closer, those tips of her fingers sharpening as it almost pricked the skin upon her neck.

“You have quite the attitude on you, no?” Piper asks, and she feels an invisible wall upon the open space where she could still move backwards. “I take it you’re the figurehead of whatever it is you’re part of—”

A slap resounded upon her cheek, drawing blood upon the place she had hit as she was temporarily stunned by the act, but what gripped her heart the most is the anger glaring at her from where she’s standing.

“I am not just the figurehead,” Maddie says, and Loren’s face soon shifts in