A place I forgot to remember

I woke up to the sound of the wind blowing dust against the stones. Not the city wind, the kind that blows through the buildings of Tokyo with a metallic hum. No. This was a different wind.

I sat up slowly. The cold rose up in my hands as I placed them on the bare stone, it wasn't the wood of my room. I looked around: mud walls, a thatched roof, a rough wooden table with knife marks. A thick, heavy blanket, dyed in reds and golds. Its patterns seemed like an ancient language that I didn't understand.

This wasn’t my room. There was no alarm clock ringing, no artificial light filtering through the blinds. I didn’t even remember how I got here. I closed my eyes, trying to recall the last thing I did… but there was nothing. Just a big emptiness.

The door creaked and slowly opened. The sun was already high, but its light did not touch the ground. Everything was covered in a pale mist, as if the world had not yet fully awakened. Then I saw her: a girl with dark hair tied back in a braid, with the same colorful blanket over her shoulders. She looked at me calmly, as if she already knew me. Took a step forwards, her eyes scanning me. Not suprise nor fear. Something closer to recognition.

"You’re awake. I was waiting." She said simply. Her voice carried the same quiet weight as the mist outside—soft, but lingering. She was speaking a broken Japanese but the words were familiar. The accent confused me, yet they settled in my mind like echoes of a forgotten lullaby.

I opened my mouth, but my throat was dry. I swallowed and tried again. "Where am I?".

The girl tilted her head slightly, as if considering the question. Then, she smiled—not with warmth, but with the kind of patience you give to a child who keeps asking things they should already know.

"You’re home. You always come back." She replied, making me dubious of this place. I felt a pressure in my chest, like my ribs were too tight around my lungs. The answer was wrong. It had to be wrong. I had never seen this place before. And yet it all pressed against the edges of my mind, like a dream I had left behind too long ago. My head searched all the room looking for a clue but there wasn't anything I could remember, this felt like being in someone else's memories, someone else's wonderland.

The air suddenly felt thicker. Something inside me tightened, as if my own body recognized those words before my mind did. No. It couldn't be true. I didn't know her. I didn't know this place. But her voice left an echo in my head, an echo of something I couldn't reach.

The girl turned slightly, glancing over her shoulder. "Come. You must be hungry." She didn’t wait for me to follow. Just stepped outside, her figure fading into the mist.

For a moment, I hesitated. Staying inside meant pretending this wasn’t happening. Stepping outside meant—I didn’t know what it meant. But the hunger in my stomach was real. And so was the cold creeping into my bones. I stood up and I followed her.

The air outside was colder than she expected. She walked ahead with light but sure steps, as if the mist didn't touch her. I walked behind the girl, feeling the dampness seep into my skin. She didn’t talk much, but she didn’t seem uncomfortable with my presence either.

The village was a maze of cobblestone streets and mud houses with thatched roofs. There were clothes hanging on some balconies, fabrics dyed red, blue and yellow floating gently in the breeze. There were no signs of technology: no lamp posts, no wires, not even a simple clock. And yet it didn't feel like an abandoned place.

The mud and stone houses looked ancient, as if they had been watching the wind beat against their walls for centuries. On one of the doors hung a small amulet woven from red threads and feathers from some bird I didn’t recognize. The air smelled of something more than wet earth… a hint of smoke and dried herbs, like burnt incense. There were no streetlights, no wires, nothing that reminded me of home.

All of this… it felt eerily familiar. But it wasn’t. “How did I get here?” I asked at last.

The girl didn’t stop. She walked a few more steps before answering. “You always come.” There was no mockery in her tone. Just a certainty she didn’t share with me.

I frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“You will.” She didn’t say anything else. She just pulled back the fabric curtain of a house and let me in first.

It was warmer inside. The smell of a hot curry hung in the air. A pot bubbled over the fire, and a pair of ceramic bowls sat on the wooden table. She took one in both hands and handed it to me without saying anything. I accepted it, more out of reflex than anything else. Steam rose to my face, and for a moment, I felt something stir in my chest. That smell… something about it made my head ache.

“Try this... is called Rokuro. You’ve had this before. You just don’t remember." She said with a warm smile as I tried to analyze this bowl with a yellowish liquid.

I took the first spoonful in my mouth. The broth was thick, slightly salty. It was a new taste that remind me of the past. The pain in my temple intensified. I blinked.

“Are you okay?” She asked. But her voice sounded different now. Farther away. More distorted. I closed my eyes. And when I opened them, I wasn’t in the mud house anymore.

I was in my room.

The light was different. Colder, paler. I blinked, but the fog didn’t go away entirely. It stayed for a moment longer, like an image retained on the retina before fading away. The sound of traffic came to me distorted, as if I were underwater. My room felt foreign to me for a moment. As if I had returned to a body that no longer belonged to me.

I sat up slowly. My head was throbbing with a dull pain. I put a hand to my chest. My pulse was still there, steady, though a little slower than usual. Was I dreaming? No. It wasn’t a dream. There wasn’t that blurry feeling, that lack of detail. The stone beneath my feet was textured, the cold air seeping through my clothes. It was all too real.

I looked around, trying to grab onto something, anything.

But the only proof that all of this had been real…

Was the taste of the curry that still lingered on my tongue.