Confessions of the Forgotten
- Kristy Sauw
- Oct 4, 2024
- 7 min read
Bzzz.
She fumbles for her phone in her oversized bag, dread curling in her chest as she reads the message. No sender, an untraceable number. It’s another cryptic note, like the ones she’s been receiving for weeks. Delivered to her in such ways she could never trace. Envelopes slipped under her office door, the messenger perceptive enough to evade the security cameras. Messages tucked into her car’s windshield wiper. No fingerprints however. They were smart.
The note read:
My final message, where you’ll soon find your way,
Every lost note guides you back to that day.
Their final message? No, no that can’t be right. This clue hardly gave her any new information. There was so much still left unanswered. Her fingers tremble as she sifts through the papers scattered across her desk, the words blurring beneath the weight of her growing panic. Success - she finds the four notes, each one so meticulously written, you would’ve thought Lemony Snicket had thought of them. They’re under this month’s edition of Detective Weekly. How she loved that magazine. I knew of her dreams to one day feature in its pages.
Each piece of paper had 2 lines of text scrawled in the middle. Couplets one would call them. A pair of lines that typically rhyme to convey a theme. Organised in the order she received them in they read:
Rustling echoes, forgotten and faint,
Every prayer said once held in restraint.
Melodies trapped in the dust-covered air,
Every chord whispers of songs lost somewhere.
Measured in silence, the years drift away,
Beneath all the rubble, your memory stays.
Entwined with the shadows, a tune still remains,
Revive what was stolen, the truth in refrain.
My final message, where you’ll soon find your way,
Every lost note guides you back to that day.
She’s tried to figure out each clue individually, but to no avail. The word prayer. It brought her to the abandoned chapel. But that couldn’t be right, no one’s been in there for years. The mention of melodies, chords, and songs. The very item that was stolen. A music box from her childhood that forever sat on her office desk. This thief has been toying with her emotions. They’re out of reach leaving these little clues behind that force her to hold onto the hope that she will find this lost item of hers. You might wonder, why a music box is of such high importance. She shouldn’t devote all her time and resources into finding such a replaceable thing. But it brings her back to her youth where the boy next door could never work up the courage to tell her his feelings. He gifted her that music box on her 16th birthday. It contained a little ballerina who twirled every so slowly when you opened it. His feelings tucked away, such like the intricate locked nature of this music box that held such a beautiful tune. The gesture said more than he ever did. A reminder of a love that could have been given a chance to bloom.
Her brow furrows. She’s thinking. Her fingers trace the edges of the paper, her mind racing. Then it hits her—something she hadn’t seen before. She grabs the highlighter, her pulse quickening as she marks the first letter of every line. I think she’s figured it out. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? Reading the highlighted letters in order spells out ‘REMEMBERME’. Rememberme? Wait. Remember me.
It was my 16th birthday. I barely remember the laughter or the games from that afternoon. What stayed with me was the silence after—the quiet, the sunset fading, and the unexpected figure standing at the gate.
The boy from next door. He had always been a shadow, watching from a distance. Never quite speaking, but always there. The timid son of a local priest, encouraged to attend every sermon that his father led in the little chapel just a few blocks away. We used to hide out there after school just enjoying each other’s company, escaping from the world. Back then, I didn’t know what to call it—a crush, a bond, something unspoken. He lingered by the gate, his hands jammed into his pockets, and for a second, I thought he’d turn around and leave. Instead, he walked over, and without a word, pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. A small, delicate music box. He remembered what I wanted. I remember the way it felt in my hands, heavier than it looked, like it was holding more than just the tune inside.
It was beautiful—pale blue with silver stars carved into the lid. I remember opening it right there on the steps, letting the soft melody drift into the air between us. The sound was haunting, a slow, almost sad tune, and I smiled because I thought it was a nice gift. I didn’t know it at the time, but it meant so much to him. A silent confession of feelings he could never speak of. I never knew just how much he cared.
After that we drifted apart however. I didn’t mean to lose him, but life has a way of pulling you apart, inch by inch, until one day you look back and realise the person you were closest to is a stranger. Maybe it was easier that way—easier to let him slip away rather than confront what we both left unsaid.
She’s staring at the letters. Remember me. All this time, all these cryptic notes—it was him. The boy from next door. How did she miss it? The pieces fall into place with painful clarity. The chapel, the music box—it had been right in front of her all along, but she was too caught up in the game to see the real message. He wasn’t trying to make her find the music box—he wanted her to remember him.
⭑⭑⭑
The smell of incense always lingered in the old chapel. That’s where they used to hide after school. Two kids who didn’t belong anywhere else, finding sanctuary among crumbling stone walls. He was the kind of boy who saw everything, noticed the smallest details, but never spoke much about himself. They would sit in silence, carving their names into the pews with sticks, whispering about the future. She told him about her childhood, before he met her, about a music box she was eyeing to keep her secrets safe, her dreams of becoming a detective, following in her late father’s footsteps. It’s all she’s ever wanted to be.
The abandoned halls of the chapel now greet her with a thick, heavy silence. The chapel is crumbling, vines curling around the stone walls. Each step echoes against the emptiness, as if the past itself is waiting to swallow her whole. The scent of mildew and damp earth hangs heavy in the air, a stark reminder of how much time has passed. It had been abandoned since his father went to prison. The man who raised him, who everyone in town once respected, torn away and thrown behind bars. And who had put him there? Her father. The chief of police.
The detective’s heart pounds in her chest. A glint of silver catches her eye on the altar. Her breath hitches—but as she steps closer, her hope crumbles. It’s nothing, just another piece of broken debris, like all the other empty promises he left behind. He’s been leading her all along, like a puppet master pulling strings she hadn’t noticed. He took something that mattered to her because she took something that mattered to him.
This was his revenge.
I don’t think it happened all at once. The drifting, I mean. After my dad arrested his father, everything changed. The boy next door, who used to linger by the gate or sit with me in the chapel, just stopped showing up. And I didn’t blame him. How could I? His father—the priest, a man everyone trusted—was suddenly behind bars because of my dad. I guess part of me didn’t try hard enough to keep the connection alive, either. Maybe it was easier that way—easier to pretend that nothing had happened, easier to bury it all. But that invisible wall between us grew stronger every day, and before I knew it, we were strangers.
⭑⭑⭑
A shadow shifts in the distance, half-hidden in the dying light. My heart stumbles in my chest. It’s him—it has to be. But as I step closer, doubt creeps in. The figure remains still, watching, waiting… or is it only the ghosts of my own memories playing tricks on me? This was about making me remember. It was always about him. The boy from next door, the one who had slipped from her life after everything had fallen apart. The boy she let drift away, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the faint memory of a music box and a birthday long past.
She stands at the edge of the chapel, the weight of the years pressing down on her. Was this revenge? Or was it simply a cry to be remembered, to remind her of a time when everything was simpler—before they drifted apart, before their lives crumbled around them?
The air is thick with unresolved words, heavy with the scent of rain on the horizon. The storm is coming, and with it, the moment of decision. She stands frozen, torn between the past and the present. Does she cross the distance, face the boy she left behind, and unravel the pain she’s buried for so long? Or does she walk away, leave this twisted game behind, and let the shadows of the chapel swallow what’s left of them? She stands at the crossroads, the world quiet around her. She hesitates, her feet planted on the threshold between past and present. She knows what she should do, but the weight of the years pulls her in both directions. One step could change everything.
I hope she steps towards me.
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