Pictures I Can’t Keep

As I exit the building of the military office, I see a familiar older lady walking in. She had tanned skin and golden eyes with slitted pupils, and her pulled-back hair resembled the color of red and orange flames.

“Azalea?” I asked upon seeing my old ally from the recent battlefield, “what are you doing here?”

Azalea’s face brightens upon seeing me as she points to her rifle that was strapped around her back. “The same as you I suppose,” she said, “I’m just here to get my formal discharge, that's all, which—I didn’t think that you cared enough to get one too.”

I smiled and nodded my head. “I only stopped by because it was along the way to my home up in the forests around the mountain range,” I explained, “but I could say the same to you too. Why do you care so much about getting one?”

Her face slowly began to sadden into a half smile as she replied, “I’m just fulfilling a promise I made to my squadron, that’s all. Since the world is ending and everything, I’ve decided to go around fulfilling as many promises as I can, starting with the one I made to my squad. What about you? Do you have any particular plans before the world ends?”

Do I? I wondered. It was a question that I had asked myself many times after the decisive battle down south, but no matter how many times I asked it, I couldn’t come up with a single answer.

“No,” I finally replied, “I was planning to get home first and then decide from there. For now though, I have a letter to the family of one of my old squadmates that I have to deliver.”

“Aw that’s too bad. I was thinking of bringing you along with me since I wanted someone who I can rely on to save me if ever needed it,” she said, referring to how I had pushed her out of the way of the artillery shell, “I heard some cities have descended into chaos, and I’d appreciate the backup, but since you’re heading up north and my next stop is a city west from here, it seems we’ll have split paths.”

Hearing that we had to part ways, my face saddened a little. I hadn’t considered it until now, but travelling the world with someone who reminded me so much of Iris wouldn’t be such a bad way to spend my last year here.

“I mean, I don’t have to deliver the letter now,” I tried to say but was cut off by Azalea shaking her head.

“One year is not as much time as you think it is,” she said, “especially given the state of the world. Let’s say you and I head west to find the person I’m looking for—what if they’re not there? What if they went somewhere else to fulfill whatever they wanted to do before the world ends? Then we would have to head to another city to go looking for them, and by the time you’re finally able to deliver the letter, what if the recipients of it aren’t there anymore? The point is, if you have something you need to do, you should do it as soon as you can.”

If I have something to do… but other than delivering this letter, what else is there…?

I shake the thought from my mind before opening my arms to give her a hug.

“Hey, what’s this now?” she gently says, patting my back as she hugs me.

“Nothing,” I softly replied, “you just remind me of someone who I really wished I could’ve hugged one more time.”

Azalea lets out a small huff and says, “I suppose you do too.”

                                                                      -ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-

The dense forest around me was painted in the vibrant colors of autumn as I crunched my way through the fallen leaves that littered the ground, occasionally ducking under the branches that awkwardly jutted out from the trees they had fallen from. It had been two weeks since I left the office, and to the best of my knowledge, I was only a day or two’s journey away from Dahlia’s farm.

Over the days I travelled, I had strictly stuck with moving through natural territory and away from the roads. Too many bandits and possible ambushes waiting by the roads, I figured.

Besides, it wasn’t like I had a car to travel on anyway. The war with the Wilted ended up destroying much of the gas supply, so even without considering the fact that the world was ending, there wasn’t enough gas left to make driving a viable option.

After a few minutes of walking, I suddenly spotted a small clearing up ahead, pausing to peer through the gaps between the branches as my face was hit with a small gust of chilly air. Winter was near, which meant that the nights were getting colder and upon seeing the dying sunlight in the sky, it only further convinced me that now would be the best time to set up camp before it got too cold.

As I set up my tent, the beautiful mix of blues and pinks in the twilight sky caught my attention, naturally drawing me in as my instincts as a photographer began kicking up once more.

That’s right… I suddenly remembered, it’s been a while since I’ve picked up my camera but I was a travel photographer before the war wasn’t I? I might not be able to travel the world with Azalea, but I can still go around taking pictures of the things I never got to.

Excited to take pictures again for the first time in a while, I placed my bag down to look for my camera.

Now that I think about it, I do have my camera on me don’t I? I wonder why I haven’t been taking any pictures recently even though I used to love doing so.

As I open my bag however, my breath hitches upon seeing what was inside.

“Don’t forget me…”

“Because you’ll remember us…”

“I can’t promise that…”

“Know that I’m doing this because I won’t regret it…”

“I’m counting on you to keep her alive…”

The voices of my comrades rush through my mind, mixing and amalgamating into a relentless onslaught as unwanted memories begin to flood into my mind.

“AGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I scream out in pain and frustration as my hands reach to clutch my throbbing head, hoping that the flashbacks would subside soon.

After what felt like hours, they finally began to fade away one by one, giving me enough room in my mind to think properly.

What… What was that? I wondered before the realization dawned on me. The pictures! The pictures… I have to close my bag fast!

Without looking at my bag, I reached out for the zipper, and zipped it up before warily looking at it, relieved to see that it was shut.

Shit! I cursed at myself for forgetting, so that’s why I haven’t been taking pictures…

As an Esper, there were three main things that distinguished us from everyone else. The first was the ability to infuse objects with aether—something that was considered useless before finding its potency in dealing with the Wilted.

The second was that every Esper was born with some sort of trait found in animals. For me, it was the pair of dove wings that sprouted from behind my back, however, their size was too small to allow me to fly with them, making them effectively useless and serving no purpose other than forcing me to have my clothes specifically tailored.

The last trait was the culprit behind my memory floods. Every Esper was born with some sort of supernatural ability, and I had the misfortune of being gifted with the ability to remember everything. That’s right; everything. Including the things I didn’t want to.

To counteract this, I had been suppressing my ability, but it came at the cost of fragmenting the volatile memory I used day to day, which made how I remember things really weird. Forgetting things was easy, and the things that stuck with me only did so if I was constantly interacting with it. However, that was the second catch; interacting with things associated with memories causes me to immediately recall the details of the memory tied to it with varying degrees of potency—and the most potent just so happened to be pictures.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In the past, taking pictures was an act of preserving memories so that if I wanted to remember something specific, all I had to do was look at the pictures associated with it and the memories would come back to me. The pictures I took during the war were supposed to be happy pictures of me and my comrades that I could look back to after the war ended, however, after their deaths… After their deaths, the pictures no longer held such happy meanings.

Instead, the pictures were now like ticking time bombs that activated upon looking at them. Every memory of my comrades was now also tied with the fact that they were dead, and because I couldn’t sever that connection, every picture of my comrades would trigger my memory floods.

It was the reason I hadn’t been looking inside my bag, because inside the main pocket was over a hundred pictures I had taken of my comrades during the war. That sort of avoidance backfired however, since because I wasn’t constantly exposed to the contents of the bag, I eventually forgot what was in it.

Forgetting things is easy, I reminded myself, hoping that the downside of my choice to suppress my powers would finally start sticking with me, but because even my camera can risk triggering my memory floods, what am I supposed to do now?

I looked at the sky once more, yearning to reach for my camera to snap a quick picture, however, as the last of the light died out in the sky, I took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

Tomorrow will be a new day.