You know what my favorite bug is? 

Karika's voice visits you as the butterfly flutters, catching itself as the wind tries to blow it away.

There's this butterfly. It's called a Glasswing Butterfly. Its wings are transparent and it's absolutely stunning. It's rare, and only lives in certain parts of the world. It isn't supposed to be here in the U.S., but... I've seen it. Quite a few times, actually, but, for the past year, I haven't. I thought it died. But lately, I've been thinking about it... and I think it lived. I think that maybe it was just waiting until someone could see it again.

A chill rushes through you and you catch your breath, suddenly cold.

I really, really hope that you never see it.

Not able to shake her words, you remove yourself from Chris's arms. He mutters something under his breath, still dreaming. You stand and walk over to the window just as the butterfly drops to the world below, and you watch as it lands on a flower on the first floor.

Wrapping Chris's jacket around you, you exit his small apartment and run barefooted down the stairs, looking for the flower and the butterfly. Just as you near it, it flits away. You curse at yourself for wanting to follow it, but do it anyway.

You don't follow it for long before you end up in a cemetery, an eerie sense of familiarity falling over you. The butterfly settles on a tombstone, one with something stained on the top of it.

Walking over, you see that it's a dark red.

Red like blood.

You stumble forward as a memory surfaces.

You're sitting in front of this tombstone, phone clutched in your dirty hands. Footsteps are getting closer, crunching on the dead leaves. You place a hand over your mouth to keep your breathing quiet.

Your phone vibrates, fear lacing across your body. What if they see the light coming from it?

You type in the response, Okay. Please hurry, and close your eyes, pressing and holding the lock button to turn the phone off. As soon as you're able to push the red circle across the screen, you stuff the phone in your pants pocket and pull the hood up over your head, praying the man doesn't find you.

And then, a hand tangles in your hair, pulling you from your spot.

You struggle to breathe as you're thrust back into the present, the graveyard bathed in the lights of sunset. However, as pretty as it may seem, the long shadows cast over the rolling ground in an ominous way, the wind picking up and sending a chill down your spine.

The butterfly lifts off from the stone and into the air. Not even a moment later, a bird swoops down and catches it in its claws.

Your hand flies to your mouth. An unexplainable whimper escapes your throat as you watch the bird carry it away to eat.

I really, really hope that you never see it.

Karika's words come back to haunt you again as the wind howls around you. Could this... Could this be your blood?

You look around you and find a sea foam jacket cast aside, hidden in a patch of tall grass, the one from your memory. It's sea-foam green and ripped in strange places. A big chunk of it is stained in red... But it couldn't be yours. You don't have any cuts or scrapes on you. The jacket might have been yours in your memory, but it could be a popular one. It could have been something from someone else's sad, terrible ending... It couldn't be yours. You are uninjured. It couldn't be yours... It just couldn't.

You stumble backwards, falling on your butt, your breathing shallow. You're immobilized as you stare at the jacket. Why has no one found this, yet? Why has no one reported it?

You jerk forward and grab the jacket. The blood is dry.

Rummaging through the pockets, you feel the crinkle of a paper and pull it out, a note with a string of words written down on it.

Buddy,

If you're reading this, it means you came back to this place. Duh. Of course. Stupid me.

Look, I know you said you lost your memories. I left your jacket here in hopes you'll find your way back here, somehow. I know I said don't come looking for me, but... I can't help but wish you would. I don't have much time left. They're coming for me. I just wish I could tell you in person how I feel about you, how I've always felt, but... you don't even remember who I am.

This wound hurts a lot. I'll probably be gone by the time you find this letter. If you find it. Yeah. If. Funny how sentimental you get when your life is almost finished.

I broke my end of the deal and you're the one who is paying the consequences. How superhero of me, right?

Even if you don't remember it, I'm glad we had the time together that we did. I'm going to miss talking on the phone with you... but I guess it doesn't really matter since you don't remember and since... I'll be gone in a few hours.

I was supposed to say goodbye quickly when I deleted everything on the phone. And then I thought I could talk you into remembering me when I called you again today... But it turns out I couldn't. I shouldn't have.

I hope they never find you and I hope you get your memories back. I hope you remember me as who I always was to you: your best friend. But I don't deserve that privilege. Please do the world a favor and never remember me.

This is my last and final goodbye. The letter's gotten too long already and I'm getting super depressed, which isn't helping my owwie. Lol.

Ugh. I just wrote lol in a letter. What has this world become?

Goodbye forever, Cora. Ha. The optimist inside me wants to tell you where I'll be, but I can't. Not unless I want to get you reinvolved with all of this, and I can't do that to you. Not to you.

I love you. I honestly do and I always have and I will until my last breath.

Which will be soon.

Goodbye, Cora.

I hope you live a good life.

- Your Buddy.

Tears for a person you've never had the privilege to actually meet after you lost your memory swell in your eyes and you collapse back onto your feet, your hand muffling the sobs trying to pull out of you. The sadness doubles as the death of Karika plays on your mind, the guilt eating you alive. Was it your fault that he died too? Was this all your fault? Could you have saved either of them? Both of them? Were they within your grasp and you made a wrong decision, a wrong turn?

Sobs rip from you. You don't know who you are. You don't know who these people who have come into your life are. Everything is blank and you're at a loss for words as to what you can do about it. You feel helpless, stuck, and you don't know where to go. You aren't sure if you're around any family, if you even liked your family, and you have no idea where you live.

The letter crumples in your hand as you hold it close to your chest. You wonder if maybe you can find him. If he's injured, he couldn't have gotten far. Could you get to him in time and get him to a hospital?

You stand, desperately searching for someone, anyone in the world around you.

If you can't carry or drag him, maybe you can rush back to Chris—but how did you get here, exactly? Could you find your way to Chris and back to the graveyard before he drifts away?

You rush over to the border of the cemetery, looking by and around the gates, checking behind each tombstone to look for someone.

There's not a soul in sight.

You run around the edge of the lot, continuing to search, calling out for someone to answer you. Eventually, you get out of the gate, the world around you growing darker as the sun begins to disappear, and you search the trees, the lots. You come across a bridge and look beneath it, hoping that maybe someone was hiding out there, but there's nothing. No one.

Panting, you stand beneath a flickering street light on the bridge, the long shadows turning into a blanket of darkness as the moon peeks out from behind a few clouds. The temperature has dropped a lot, and you're sure Chris is probably looking for you now, worrying.

You exhale, turning back toward the direction you came, where the cemetery is. You make your way toward it, shivering from the cold, when two voices send chills down your spine and make you stop in your tracks.

"Her body wasn't found. She disappeared when we went to clean up the room."

Your breath hitches. Did you stumble upon a conversation about... you?

No way...

"I thought the other guys cleaned it up and took her with them."

"Man, I thought so too, but they said they don't know anything about it. Someone did go into the room, though. The window was open."

"You idiot," the second voice grunts, sounding closer than before. You duck behind a house, trying not to step on anything that will give away your location. "Maybe she wasn't really dead and escaped through the window."

"Yeah, but I don't see how she could have survived that."

"Hey!"

A bright light falls upon you and you jump. Someone with a flashlight is running toward you. You hold in a cry and sprint, darting through the open back gate of the cemetery, the one you'd left open earlier, and sprint past the spot you found your jacket, leaving it behind.

"Hey! That's her!"

Gunshots.

You scream this time, ducking down behind a large gravestone while you wait for the firing to stop and get back up again, feet pounding on the street. To the right is the direction you came from, from Chris's apartment, but you can't lead whoever's chasing you there.

You take off the other way, hearing the men you'd left behind cursing under their breath.

You dart into an alleyway, slamming into something big and soft. Falling to your butt, you scramble up, a chuckle resonating to your ears. Before you stands Chubby and Malnourished from the first day, the two guys who'd cornered you. You grimace and turn to run, but chubby grabs you by your elbow and pulls you to him. You grit your teeth and drive your knee into his crotch, forcing him to let go as he howls.

"Don't touch me," you growl, exiting the alley and trying to figure out where to run. The men are standing at the other end of the street, looking around them as they head in your direction. You take a breath and head toward Karika's house, hopefully headed the right way. If you can get to her weapons, maybe you can protect yourself should they corner you.

You remind yourself that Chris said she leaves her key under a rock in the front.

"There!" you hear them, and dart into another alley, keeping track of where you are at all times. You hear them follow you and burst back out into the town, realizing two of them had been waiting for you at the other end.

Fear claws your throat as you back up and begin to dart back into another alleyway, but you see the guys who followed are catching up to you.

You panic.

"The boss isn't gonna like that you're still alive," the guy leading the other three in the alley spits, almost black eyes glinted with murderous intent. "But at least he can find a good use for you."

One of the two that had been waiting for you grabs you roughly by the back of your neck and one of your wrists, tugging at your hair. You grit your teeth at the sudden pain setting your scalp on fire, the right side of your neck exposed. His filthy breath caresses your skin and he chuckles. "If he can't, we sure can."

You buck against his weight, wishing you had something on your body to arm you, like Karika did. Karika...

"The boss told him to drop off the face of the earth, but look at what he dug up from his past. You're proof he knew what he did was wrong. Wonder what he was planning to do with you," the guy in the alley says, walking close to you and pushing the cold end of his gun against your chin, forcing you to look at him. His eye is missing, an eyepatch covering it instead. Thick black hair falls to his back beneath a fedora, waving in the wind, crow's feet clawing at his eyes. He's no spring chicken. "Amateurs."

Hitting your chin with the barrel of his gun, you stumble to the side. You don't fall, though, Nasty catching you, his greasy blonde hair comes down to his high collar, his light brown eyes filled with disgusting emotions that make you cower beneath his gaze.

Your brain stops spinning and you stand upright, staring the long-haired guy down, fighting the trembling inside you. If the blonde guy wasn't holding you up, you'd crumble to the ground and get lost in the tsunami of helplessness that is flooding your bones.

How did everything get so bad, so fast?

The fedora guy lifts a phone to his ear.

"We found her, boss. What do you want us to do to her?"

To you?

Your knees give out and they hit the ground, ripping your borrowed jeans open and biting into your skin. Nasty pulls you up roughly as Fedora glares at you, scrutinizing.

He lifts the gun to your forehead, looking into your eyes with no emotion playing on his features.

"Understood."

He pulls the trigger.