The photo. Just sat there on the table. Detective Rowan pushed it. Slide. Right to me. It made a scratchy sound on the plastic table. I looked at it. I didn't want to.
It was me. But not me. A picture from a camera up high on a pole by the bridge. Grains, like TV snow. But clear enough.
My face. My jacket. The one with the rip near the pocket I never fixed. My hands in my pockets. And my mouth. My mouth was doing a small curve. A smile. A tiny one. Like I knew a secret.
My stomach felt cold. Like I drank ice.
Rowan watched me. His eyes didn't blink much. "Explain," he said. His voice was flat. Not mean. Just… waiting.
I opened my mouth. My tongue was dry. Like paper. "I was there," I got out. The words were sticky. "Earlier. On the bridge. I talked to her. Then I left. I went home. I wasn't there for… for that."
"The time on the picture says 9:47 PM," he said. His finger tapped the photo. Tap. Tap. On my paper face. "She died around then. 9:45 to 10, the doctor says. This is you. Right next to her. And you're smiling."
"I don't remember smiling. "It sounded stupid. Kid stuff. I don't remember.
"Do you remember being there at 9:47?"
I tried. I squeezed my brain. The bridge. The black water. Her back. Not moving. The feeling in my guts. Like a fist. Then turning. Walking away. My shoes on the gravel. Crunch crunch. Then… fuzzy. A patch. Like when you wake up and the dream is running away, and you can't grab it. A blank space between the bridge and my front door. Maybe twenty minutes. Gone.
"I… there's a gap," I said. My voice was quiet. A mouse-voice. "A short one. I might have… stayed. Looked back. Something. But I didn't hurt her. I don't know how to do… air in veins. "Saying it felt weird. Air. You breathe it. You can't kill with it. But you can.
Rowan kept looking. The light above us buzzed. A fly was hitting the window. Tick tick tick.
"Memory," he said finally. "It's a tricky thing. Under stress… it breaks. Hides pieces. Sometimes it hides pieces from us. To protect us."
"From what?" I asked.
"From ourselves."
The words hung in the air. They mixed with the buzz and the tick-tick. I got it. The hollow feeling. It wasn't just empty. It was a hole where a memory should be. A guilty memory.
"Am I a suspect?" I already knew.
"Everyone is a suspect until they're not," he said. He leaned back. His chair squeaked. "You found her. You were the last to see her. And now this picture." He waved at it. "You're a 'person of interest.' Big interest." He paused. "But. I've been a cop a long time. People who kill like this… clean, no mess, like a doctor… they don't usually stand around on cameras. Smiling. It's weird. The killing is invisible. The person on the bridge isn't. It's like… two different people."
"Or one person," I said. The idea came fast. "But in two different… minds."
Rowan's head moved. A slow nod. "Yeah. That."
He let me go home. "Don't go far," he said.
Home didn't feel like home. The couch was gone. The cops took it. A white rectangle was on the floor. Dusty. A couch ghost. I didn't sit there. I sat at the kitchen table. The chair leg was wobbly.
Krivya.
Now I knew her name. Before she was just the girl. The one from the accident. The one in class. The one on the bridge. Now she was Krivya Sharma. 17. Lived with an aunt. Quiet. Had a life. And her life ended and I was in the picture.
Literally.
The texts had stopped. No more "You don't remember."Silence.The silence was worse. It was heavy. Like waiting for a shoe to drop. But you don't know where the shoe is.
My phone buzzed. Rinos.
Rinos: heard. u ok?Me (Eryx): no.Rinos: need anything? i can come.
I stared. My first thought was NO. Go away. Let me be hollow alone. But the hollow ached. It was a big, quiet ache. I needed a voice. A real one.
Me: yes. come.
He came quick. He had a plastic bag. Smelled like fried stuff. And a six-pack of FizzUp soda. Orange. He didn't say hey or anything. Just put the food on the table. Two containers. He opened them. Rice. Some chicken curry. He pushed one to me. Gave me a fork. A napkin. The napkin had a stupid cartoon cow on it.
We ate. The food was warm. Greasy. Good. We didn't talk for a bit. Just chewing. It was okay. Comfortable quiet.
After a while I said, "They think I might have done it."
Rinos took a big bite. Chewed. Swallowed. "Did you?" he asked. Just like that. No drama.
"I don't know." I looked right at him. "That's the truth, Rinos. I don't know. I have blank spots. And that picture."
He drank his soda. Gulp gulp. "You've been… not yourself. For a while. Like you're half somewhere else. Watching your life on a TV with bad signal."
"You said I was getting hollow."
"Yeah." He put his fork down. It clinked. "Look. I don't think you killed anyone. But something's… happening. You live in your head too much. What if…" He rubbed his nose. "What if that other part of your head did something? Without the you-part knowing?"
"That's crazy talk."
"Is it?" He raised one eyebrow. His eyebrow was thicker than mine. "You're always talking about your 'world.' Your made-up world. What if… for a second… the wall between your world and this one got a crack? And something slipped through?"
It was a big thought. A scary thought. Where do you stop and your thoughts start? If you imagine pushing someone off a cliff… is that you? What if your hand moved without you telling it to? Because the thought was so strong?
"I'm scared to look inside," I whispered. The chicken felt heavy in my belly. "What if I find the guy in that picture? The smiler."
"Then you deal with him," Rinos said, simple. Like it was easy. "But not knowing is worse. It's like… having a ghost in your skin. A squatter."
He was right. The not-knowing was a kind of ghost. It moved my hands. Made my heart beat fast for no reason.
After he left, the quiet came back. I looked at my hands. Were they my hands? They looked normal. A little dirty under the nails. A scar on the thumb from a broken pencil last year.
I needed to write it down. Not a diary. A… log. Like a scientist. A crime scientist of my own brain.
I got an old notebook. The cover was torn. I wrote the date at the top.
Facts:
1. Accident. Boy hit by truck. I watched. I remember the sound. A thump-crunch. Then… blur. Next clear thing is people yelling.
Bridge. I saw Krivya. I talked. I asked if she was okay. She didn't answer good. I left. I remember turning. Then… fuzzy. Next clear thing is my door key.
Two blank spots. Two holes in the movie of my life. What was in the holes? Was it just static? Or was there a scene? A bad scene?
I went to my room. My bed was messy. I hadn't made it. I looked at the wall. There was a poster of a spaceship. It was peeling at the corner.
Who are you? I asked the quiet in my head.
For the first time, the quiet didn't feel empty.It felt… occupied.Like something was sitting in the dark, just out of sight.
Waiting.