The first thing Emily noticed when she opened her eyes was the silence. It wasn't peaceful—it was oppressive, like the kind of silence you feel after something terrible has happened. She wasn't in her bed. She wasn't anywhere familiar. She was sitting on a rickety wooden boat, drifting aimlessly on water that was so dark it seemed endless. The sea stretched out, flat and unmoving, like it was waiting for something.
The moon, red and unnatural, hung above her. It wasn't just the color that unsettled her—it was the way the light hit everything. It cast long, thin shadows across her hands, making them look pale and fragile. She wasn't cold, but she felt chilled to the bone. The air around her was heavy, like it was full of old secrets that had nowhere to go. She shivered anyway, rubbing her arms as if to chase the feeling of being watched.
The boat creaked beneath her, an old thing that didn't look strong enough to hold her, let alone the weight of whatever this place was. She glanced around, but there was nothing to see but the endless sea. There was no land, no shore. Just water, and the eerie glow of that red moon.
_Where am I?_
She didn't know. She couldn't remember how she got here, or what had happened before. One moment, she'd been… somewhere else. She didn't know if it was real. Was she even awake now?
The feeling of disorientation hit her like a wave, but the sea beneath her remained still, too still. As if it was waiting for her to understand something she didn't want to.
She looked down at the water, and that was when she saw them. Faces.
The water wasn't just dark. It was filled with faces—thin, pale, ghostly. They floated just beneath the surface, their features flickering like old memories, too clear to be imagined but too distant to be real. At first, she thought it was her mind playing tricks, but no. The faces were there, moving slowly beneath her, their eyes wide, staring at her.
Her stomach dropped.
There was her father's face.
It was him, but not. A version of him from when she was a little girl when things were still simple. Back when he'd smiled at her like he hadn't yet broken her heart when everything seemed okay. The way his eyes had crinkled at the corners when he laughed, the sound of his voice telling her everything would be fine. That was who he was. That was who he _had been_.
But this face... this version of him looked wrong. His smile twisted. His eyes—those eyes that once reminded her of everything safe—had gone dark, hollow. They were like pits, as though there was nothing left inside of him.
Her breath caught in her throat.
_What happened to him? What happened to us?_ she wondered, as the memory of her father warped beneath the surface. She reached out, her fingers shaking, wanting to pull him back to something real, but the more she focused, the further his face drifted, becoming something alien, something she couldn't hold on to anymore.
How much of this is real? _How much can I hold on to?_
Her chest tightened. The faces just kept coming, and with each one, the weight in her heart grew heavier. Her mother. The best friend who had stopped talking to her after that fight years ago. That ex-boyfriend she never thought she'd get over, but eventually did, even though it still hurt sometimes when she thought about him.
Each face was like a stone dropped into her stomach. She could feel their weight, their presence, their expectations. They were her past, floating there in the dark, reminding her of things she hadn't thought about in years. Things she had buried deep because they hurt too much to deal with.
She leaned over the boat's edge, her heart racing as she tried to make sense of what was happening. The faces kept swimming beneath the surface, sometimes just out of reach, sometimes so close she could almost touch them.
Her mother's face was next. The memory of her smile, soft and comforting, filled her head, but it didn't feel comforting anymore. It felt like a lie—something she could never go back to, no matter how much she wanted it. Her mother had been gone for years, but sometimes Emily could still smell the lavender she used to wear. Sometimes, she could still hear her humming in the kitchen while she made dinner. But here, in this place, those memories didn't feel safe. They felt like chains.
Her fingers hovered over the water again, trembling. She reached for the face of her best friend, the one who had walked away after their falling out. _Maybe if I just reach for it,_ Emily thought, _I can make things right._
But as soon as her hand touched the surface, the face twisted. The girl she had once called her best friend was no longer smiling. Her face was distorted with bitterness, her eyes filled with accusations.
_Why haven't you fixed this? Why didn't you try harder?_
The words didn't come out loud, but they echoed through Emily's mind like a scream. She jerked her hand back, heart pounding. _I didn't want to lose you,_ she thought. _But I didn't know how to fix us._
The water felt colder now. The boat groaned beneath her. Her grip tightened on the edge, the wood splintering beneath her fingers. She couldn't keep doing this. She couldn't keep reliving these moments, these pieces of her life that had fallen apart, only to be dragged back again and again.
_What happens if I keep holding on?_
She looked down at the water again, the faces staring back at her, their eyes pleading with her to remember, to keep them. To hold them close, even if it meant drowning in the memories.
But she couldn't. Not anymore.
Slowly, she pulled her hand away, letting go of the face of her father. She didn't want to. The pain of it hurt so much, it felt like her chest was being torn apart, but she had to. She had to let go. There was no space for her here if she kept holding on to everything that had come before. She let the memory slip into the water, the face of her father disappearing beneath the surface.
It didn't get easier. Each memory she let go of felt like a part of her was slipping away. But the weight on her chest lightened a little bit with every release. Her mother's face. Her friend's face. That first love, the one that had been so pure but so brief, slipped away into the darkness like it never existed. It wasn't about forgetting them. It was about _letting them go_.
The boat began to feel steadier. The faces in the water seemed to retreat like they were being pulled back into the depths. The sea was still, and the weight of the memories seemed less crushing. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to forget them all. She didn't know if she even wanted to.
But for the first time since she'd gotten here, she felt like she could breathe.
_What will be left of me when I let go of all of this?_ she thought, looking out at the endless water. Would there be anything left to recognize?
She didn't know. But for the first time in a long time, she wasn't afraid to find out.
The boat drifted, slowly and she closed her eyes. There was nothing left to do but keep going.