The Rememberer's Curse

By Irony Illuminator

Chapter One: Interrogation And Recall

The room was dark. Very dark. Too dark for her liking, at least in her present mood. In actuality, most of the room was dark. A pool of bright light surrounded her, causing her to squint for a few moments before her eyes were fully adjusted.

She was sitting in front of a table, staring at the smooth, polished surface. She studied the lighter flecks in the mahogany absently. They certainly hadn’t spared any expense on her account.

A sigh whispered through the surrounding darkness, but she didn’t look up.

“Alright, let’s go through this one more time.” It was a man’s voice, a fairly deep voice. The man himself was tall, his back ramrod straight, his posture therefore perfect. “You did not see any of this. You’re not going to mention it to anybody. In fact, you’re simply going to forget that any of this happened and go on with your life.”

“I don’t have a life,” she said flatly. They were the first words she had spoken since they had brought her here. “I have nothing to go on with.”

The man’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “That is beside the point,” he said arrogantly. “Completely irrelevant. The point is that you don’t mention this to anyone. Forget that it ever happened and go on with the nothing that you call your life.”

Her pride rankled at his condescending tone, but she said nothing more. They had the upper hand at the moment, but she had a secret weapon. They couldn’t make her forget anything. If they didn’t mind-wipe her, which she knew for a fact they wouldn’t, they couldn’t do anything about her memory.

She was going to remember this to her dying day.

Even if it weren’t one of the most important things she’d witnessed, she would still make herself remember it, just to spite them.

“…Is that clear, Miss Ladson?” The man was beyond irritated with her. He was completely infuriated, but he was trying very hard not to show it. Some of it was slipping through though, and she latched onto it like a leech.

Ah…the inspiration of motivation…

“Crystal clear, Mr. Bardsworth,” she said, straightening in her seat, her voice brisk and businesslike. The man blinked, and she knew it was because, number one, he hadn’t mentioned his name to her, and number two, because of the radical change in her behavior.

She liked doing that to people. It was very amusing.

“Now that our business is concluded here, perhaps you would allow me to return to my life,” she suggested pointedly.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a life,” he said with a coolly dangerous smile.

She eyed him calmly. “I lied.”

---

Drifting… Drifting through blackness…

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Of all people that should be cursed with such a fate…

Her name was Samara Ladson and she was a Rememberer. Lord, it was a cursed title.

Remember, Samara. Remember every single detail. Call it into your mind. Recall the time that you realized what your fate would be. Recall the time when he told you the truth. Recall how he left you. Recall the time when you discovered how they’d been using you. Recall how you agreed to their terms. Recall it all and squirm in the regret of your memories.

She shouldn’t have sent him away. It hadn’t been his fault, it really hadn’t. But she had been so angry with him, angry with the one who cared enough to tell her the truth… And he had deserted her.

But only because she deserted him first.

Why? Why, why, why?

Why, Samara? Why? Why did you leave me?

The thoughts flitted through her mind like humming birds, alighting only momentarily on a flower before darting away to the next one.

It was his thought of course, or rather, the thought she wished he would have. If only she could take back the things she had said…

You are living in the past, and that is why you’re a Rememberer. That’s also why the Council doesn’t want you to say anything anymore. They’re trying to shut you up, Samara. Are you going to let them shut you up?

Yes.

What else could she do, really?

Her whole life had been devoted to this, ever since she discovered the truth about herself.

Samara Ladson was a Rememberer, and she always would be, regardless of what the Council said. They couldn’t make her forget. They couldn’t take away the memories, and they couldn’t mind-wipe her. Could they? As far as Samara knew, the Council generally abstained from mind-wiping rememberers. It caused undesired problems.

The mind of a Rememberer was a delicate thing. It was strong enough to hold all the memories necessary, but in fact, it was so accustomed to it that if all the memories were removed, the mind would break. Yes, the mind would break, and possibly even revert to HOA mode. That is, Hidden Opposite Activist mode.

Once, when she was younger, and still in her training, Samara had seen a Rememberer whose mind had been broken and had reverted to HOA mode.

She would never forget the things she had seen, or the things that she had heard in that room.

…The things her brother had screamed at her, eyes bulging, straining against the bonds that held him, hatred burning in his eyes, swearing that he was going to destroy her. He didn’t remember her. The Council had mind-wiped him because he was out of practice, slacking off, and picking up on information that they didn’t want him to pick up on.

They broke his mind and caused him to go insane.

She would forever hate them for it.

That had happened after she had discovered that she possessed the Remembering Gene, just like her brother did. They had both inherited it from their father. There was no particular point in a person’s life when they realized that they did or did not have the Remembering Gene. Some people discovered it when they hit puberty; some people went thirty years before they realized it, some for the majority of their life. Some never realized it.

Samara had realized it when she was fifteen, and therefore had to enter the training program for Rememberers. She hated it, but her brother helped her through it.

And then they broke his mind and caused him to go insane.

And she would forever hate them for it.

After that, the only reason she had stayed in the training program was because of Ian.

Ian… Ian Everland, her one friend in the training program.

He was the one she confided in, the one she cried to, the one who she laughed with, the one she pulled pranks on/with. They got in trouble together, stuck together, matured together.

And then, on her twentieth birthday, when she graduated from the training program, she had given him her first kiss.

They fell in love together. With each other.

Sort of…

Sort of, Samara? You do not fully appreciate the ludicrousness of the situation. What makes you think he wasn’t using you just like the Council was? None of them told you that you were different. Ian didn’t tell you, even after all those years. He admitted he had known for a while, and he never told you. Once he did tell you, what did he do? You remember, Samara, don’t you? Of course you remember. That’s your life. Remembering. He left, Samara, and you don’t know to this day if he’s alive or dead, and it bothers you, because despite the excuses you make, you still wonder what happened to him.

Yes, she wondered.

Samara forced herself to think about that night when Ian had finally told her the truth about her power as a Rememberer and about how the Council had been taking advantage of her.

Special, Samara. You’re special. So special that no one could tell you and Ian left after he mustered the courage to spit the words out.

She was an Eliander.

An Eliander…

Of all the things that she could possibly be, that was the worst. And a Rememberer, and an Eliander on top of it all…

A Rememberer remembered things, any type of things. An Eliander remembered things and emotions. It didn’t seem like that much of a difference, but it was.

You know what a difference in makes, Samara. You’ve lived with it and the knowledge of it for ten years now and it’s slowly driving you insane.

In a way, she wished that the Council would mind-wipe her the way they’d mind-wiped her brother. Maybe she would revert to HOA mode and avenge him, getting revenge for herself as well.

But then, that wasn’t her job, was it?

She was simply supposed to remember things, except for this. Now, this was interesting. This could bring the Council to its knees before her, and she had a mind to reveal it to the world. The Council would never be able to function properly again. Of course, then they would mind-wipe her.

Oh well. What did it matter? Wasn’t that what she wanted?

To join her brother in a cell, screaming and hating each other, until they ended up killing each other?

Yes.

No.

She didn’t know. It depended.

And in actuality, these emotions came from the memories.

Curse the Eliander.

Her brother hadn’t been an Eliander, and they’d mind-wiped him anyway. Why didn’t they just mind-wipe her?

She had demanded the answer of Ian on that last night ten years ago, when he had told her everything. He had shrugged his shoulders helplessly and said that perhaps it was because they needed her help, needed the emotions that were engraved permanently in her memory.

Had it really been ten years ago that she had yelled at him, shouting in his face, telling him that she never wanted to see him again?

Doesn’t it feel like ten years have passed?

No.

It felt like yesterday, as some things do.

Yesterday, when she had discovered another facet of her own life, rejected her love, and “sold her soul” to the Council, as the saying goes, in despair.

That’s what it felt like.

But then, she didn’t really feel anything anymore.

None of the feelings were really hers.