I stared at the photograph on my phone.
Me.
Meera.
The café.
Taken only a few hours ago.
The angle was wrong for a customer. Wrong for a security camera.
Someone had been close enough to watch us.
Close enough to take the picture.
Close enough to follow us without being noticed.
A cold feeling settled in my chest.
Then my phone vibrated again.
Another message from the same unknown number.
Stop digging into the past.
That was it.
No explanation.
No threat.
Just a warning.
Somehow, that made it worse.
Because people don't send warnings unless they're afraid you'll discover something.
And for the first time, it felt like we were getting dangerously close to the truth.
I called Meera immediately.
She answered on the second ring.
"Arjun?"
The moment I heard her voice, I felt slightly calmer.
But only slightly.
"Are you home?"
A pause.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Lock your door."
Silence.
Then her voice became serious.
"What happened?"
I told her everything.
The USB drive.
The video.
The photograph.
The message.
By the time I finished speaking, neither of us said anything for several seconds.
Finally, Meera whispered,
"They found you."
The words sent a chill through me.
Not because of what she said.
Because of how quickly she said it.
As if she'd been expecting this day for years.
"Who found me?" I asked quietly.
Meera didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she asked something else.
"What exactly did the video say?"
I hesitated.
Then repeated the final sentence.
"Meera never told you the whole truth either."
The line went completely silent.
My grip tightened around the phone.
Because her silence felt like an answer.
"Meera."
Still nothing.
"Meera."
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded smaller than I'd ever heard it before.
"I was hoping he'd never tell you that."
A strange heaviness settled in my chest.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
Because for the first time since we'd reunited, I realized she had been hiding things too.
The next morning, neither of us went to work.
Instead, we met at the small park near the lake that appeared in so many of my dreams.
The sky was overcast.
The water remained perfectly still.
Everything looked exactly like the place I'd seen hundreds of times while sleeping.
Except this time, it was real.
Meera sat beside me on a wooden bench.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then she finally said,
"You deserve the truth."
I looked at her.
"Then tell me."
She nodded slowly.
And began.
"The accident happened because of me."
The sentence hit like a punch.
"What?"
Meera stared at the lake.
Unable to meet my eyes.
"The night of the accident..."
Her voice trembled.
"...we weren't just driving home."
Every instinct inside me screamed that I wasn't going to like what came next.
"We were running."
My heartbeat quickened.
"Running from who?"
She laughed softly.
A sad laugh.
"The same people who are watching us now."
The world suddenly felt much bigger.
And much more dangerous.
Meera reached into her bag and pulled out something I'd never seen before.
An old photograph.
Folded and worn from years of being carried around.
She handed it to me.
I looked down.
The image showed three people.
Me.
Meera.
And another girl.
She couldn't have been older than eighteen.
Long dark hair.
Bright smile.
Happy.
Normal.
Someone I'd never seen before.
"Who is she?"
The moment the question left my mouth, Meera closed her eyes.
As if even hearing it hurt.
"Her name was Aisha."
The name meant nothing to me.
But Meera's reaction did.
Because tears had already begun gathering in her eyes.
"She was my younger sister."
I froze.
The air seemed to disappear from my lungs.
A sister.
Meera had a sister.
Past tense.
Had.
Not has.
A terrible feeling settled in my stomach.
"What happened to her?"
Meera looked away.
Toward the water.
Toward the memories she'd spent years trying to survive.
And then she whispered the answer.
"She died."
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The city sounds faded into the background.
The only thing I could hear was the wind moving across the lake.
"I don't understand."
My voice sounded distant.
"What does that have to do with us?"
Meera laughed bitterly.
"Everything."
She wiped her eyes.
Then continued.
"Aisha worked as an intern for a research company."
My pulse quickened.
Research company.
The words immediately connected to the video.
Information.
Secrets.
Something dangerous.
"One day she found something she wasn't supposed to see."
The same sentence my past self had used.
The exact same sentence.
A chill ran through me.
"What did she find?"
Meera shook her head.
"I still don't know."
"What?"
"She never told me."
The frustration in her voice sounded genuine.
"All I know is that she became terrified."
The lake reflected the gray sky above us.
Cold.
Empty.
Silent.
"Three weeks later, she died in what the police called an accident."
I looked down at the photograph again.
The smiling girl.
Aisha.
Someone whose life had somehow become tangled with ours.
Someone important enough to die for.
"The night before she died..."
Meera swallowed hard.
"...she contacted us."
My heartbeat accelerated.
"Us?"
She nodded.
"You and me."
Suddenly another memory fragment appeared.
Not a complete memory.
Just an image.
A frightened girl handing me a flash drive.
Rain.
Darkness.
Fear.
Then nothing.
The vision disappeared instantly.
But it was enough.
Because for the first time, I remembered Aisha.
Only for a second.
But I remembered.
Meera noticed immediately.
"You saw something."
I nodded slowly.
"A flash drive."
Her eyes widened.
The reaction told me everything.
"She gave us something, didn't she?"
Meera looked down.
Then nodded.
"Yes."
The world seemed to stop.
Because suddenly, everything connected.
The accident.
The memory treatment.
The threats.
The surveillance.
Three years of lost memories.
It all led back to one thing.
Whatever was on that flash drive.
"Where is it now?" I asked.
Meera's face went pale.
For several seconds, she didn't answer.
And somehow, that scared me more than anything she'd said so far.
"Meera."
She looked directly at me.
Fear.
Real fear.
The kind that comes from knowing exactly how dangerous the truth is.
Then she whispered:
"It's still missing."
The words hung in the air between us.
Heavy.
Impossible.
Terrifying.
Because if the flash drive was still missing...
Then someone else might already have it.
And if they didn't...
They were still looking for it.
As they sat beside the lake, neither of them noticed the man standing across the road.
Watching.
Waiting.
Holding a photograph taken three years ago.
A photograph showing Arjun, Meera...
And Aisha.
Together.
Smiling.
The back of the photograph contained a handwritten note.
Only four words.
"Find the drive first."