After some time waiting, having already rang the bell, I find myself before my friend looking at me as if I was a stranger. Still hurts but I think I can take it.
He almost closed the door immediately, but I put my foot between the doors. He looks at me weird for a few second and then waits for me to say something.
I remember when we talked about it. "We can't just put our foot in the door we should do more to signal something weird otherwise a total stranger to the code could just barge in whenever he wants right" "Yeah but I just want to signal that we are friends and forgot about each other. Why can't It just be simple." "Ok as a compromise the foot in the door stays but we have to say something extra to rely on the different scenarios, right?" "Ok fine with me"
He looks at me annoyed as I fall into my thoughts again. Let me think how the code go again ah yes. "How are the wife and kids?" He looks at me as if I had eaten his dinner or something with big eyes and an open jaw.
He tries to hold his bearings, but you could slightly hear it in his voice as he shouts into the house to his mom that a friend came over and that they are discussing something for school up in his room.
Looking around my second home. Feelings come up I tried to suppress some tears flow down my check, but he doesn't notice it walking me through his home up to his room.
The old house still has the pictures which are weirdly always missing one person. In the one we were on the beach having fun and so his mom decided to come over and take a picture of us. But here you can see only him looking excited at the camera but being weirdly not in the center.
Or the Items I gifted him a strangely missing too. Some were buddha statues which his mother loved others being statues of a silver dragon from jugi yo. All missing which instead have an abnormal emptiness which doesn't fit in the style of everything.
But yeah, the creepy wallpaper still standing strong. From all the things I would have like to disappear, that one was one on the top of the list. As I had accidentally hinted it to his mother and thereby given her a love for life I which to this day I regret dearly.
The old stairs always creaking when you step on the second fifth and eight steps and finally, his room still having a "Gotta catch ém all" Frame of his favorite anime series.
Inside you could find things worthy of an Otaku and Mystery geeg combined sprinkled with childhood expectations. Weird but still satisfying to see.
We come before his tee desk reserved for only the finest trades. From Card trades to game cartridge trades.
He sits down and looks at me excitedly to sit down. I look down at the oversized bean bag and let myself fall as if it was my calling. Getting the position of a true wow player.
He begins "So you are a friend of mine I forgot right?" Finally, something interesting as if playing games alone all days would bring anything to the table.
I say "Yes but you know there is more to this pie. Let's just say something supernatural." I wink at him.
He squeals like a little piggie creepy but fair "Finally ok good which one. Like Cursed, All strong, Mysterious, God, Secret project, Government, disease, All mighty, secret civilization." I stop him before he tells me the complete alphabet.
"Yes, Cursed object, I think. Or maybe cursed Artifact." As I think about the difference. Object means that I have it with me, Artifact means I have it with me but can't show it or I had it, but it vanished.
He looks at me excited waiting for me to say the last part with certainty "Ehm yes it's a cursed Artifact" saying the last part out loud. At the exact moment you could see his world shattering or better said his smile forming into a frown. As he starts to consider, as he knows the difference between these two.
"Hmmm… A cursed artifact you say, did you find out the curse or consequences already?" I think to myself what it could be, only for it to smash into my face. Changing my habits, controlling the situation from the outside, deleting every memory or existence of any person or object. And being able to teleport.
As I say those things out loud, he looks at me weirdly, I look at him back with a face telling him to say what he wants to say "Did you maybe consider that it did more than that? Like maybe changing your memory or altering them?"
Why should it alter my memory everything is fine with ….? Fuck I can't bring myself to believe as if a hand is holding me down from further thinking about anything. I look at him scared telling him only with my face that I think it's true.
We both look into each other's eyes and decide to not talk about it as we both know we are not strong or clever enough to change something like that.
We instead focus on the anomalies it gave to not only me but everything around it, as we conclude that it is not listening but only their trough a thought blocker which it put on me. To not think about certain things, he marked like …. Or …. I can't remember them or how I reacted, but he showed me a video of me going ballasted when he asked me ….
The first anomaly we found were the weird and straight up bad works it did. With all the disappearing and stuff. Like that you can find a license covering the apartment building we lived in and how since the day we moved into it everything got deleted. Like since that day everything is blank. Not blank in you get into it and delete everything no in turning the art style into white and letting a weird 5 pages wide white blank stay there.
Or I told him about his photo's downstairs. So, we went down, and he started to consider it even more as his memory is weird too. Like Having a floating curry pot in his memory convinced him immediately.
We looked over everything and the more we did the more we found out. Like a weird Rift like think forming all around us deleting everything about everything that had contact with him. Like his neighbor's house 2 streets down which got hit.