Memory Bleed

Eito’s room was a dim cave of shadows and static noise. The glow of his radio’s dial cast a pale green light over the scattered pages of his notebook - scribbles and symbols that made no sense to anyone but him. Outside, the thick summer air pressed against the cracked window, sticky with the scent of rain yet to fall.

He lay motionless on his bed, fingers tracing the faded fabric of the blanket. It was dead quiet save for the gentle hum of his radio’s static, a soft white noise that was neither music nor silence, but something between worlds.

Eito had never known how to explain why he preferred static. The way it folded over itself, as if hiding a secret code beneath a veil of noise. He liked to imagine it was a message from somewhere beyond the ordinary. That it was a language only the lonely could hear.

The clock ticked past three in the morning. The red digits blinked 3:12 AM with a mechanical precision that sounded louder in the stillness. And then -

Tap.
Tap.
Tap.

It was the same sound every night.

Soft and deliberate. Three gentle taps at the window.

He didn’t look at the glass right away. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. It was like waiting for a dream to break through the surface, like waiting for something impossible to become real.

The tapping came again. This time louder, sharper, closer. It wasn’t the wind nor rain.

It was like a human finger poking the glass.

Eito sat up, heart fluttering with a mix of anticipation and unease. Bare feet met the cold wood floor as he moved toward the window, the faint static of the radio trailing behind him like a ghost.

He slid the window open slowly. A cool breath greeted him. Too cool for the season. Something fragile fluttered past his cheek. He looked down.

A single white feather lay on the windowsill, as light as a whisper.

Eito’s gaze traveled across the empty street, resting on the rooftop of the old convenience store across the way. There, standing against the faint glow of the streetlights, was a girl.

She wore a white dress that looked like it was woven from moonlight and fog, soft and flowing, almost weightless. Her hair, pale as winter’s first snow, cascaded down her back in a river of silver-white strands.

And her wings.

Or something resembling them.

They shimmered and flickered, not like feathers but like fragments of broken light, glitching in and out of existence as if she were a corrupted image struggling to maintain form. Lines of static wove through the shape of her wings, fracturing their edges into stuttering shards that blurred the line between reality and distortion.

She faced away from him, perfectly still. No movement in her frame except the faint flutter of the dress and hair in a wind that didn’t reach him.

Eito swallowed, the familiar cold knot tightening in his chest. His breath fogged the air between them, but she did not turn.

And then she was gone.

No sudden shift, no blur of motion. Just an empty rooftop, silent street, the faintest echo of her presence hanging in the air like a question unanswered.

Behind him, the radio shifted. The static warped into something else. A fractured voice, broken and distant, trying to speak through layers of interference.

“...sequence error… do not receive… memory bleed layer 3... reset… Eito…”

The voice faded, swallowed by the returning hiss of white noise.

Eito turned slowly, eyes fixed on the radio’s glowing dial. The needle had moved, dancing for a moment before settling back into place.

The feather remained on the windowsill. Too pristine to belong in the world he knew.

He reached out but stopped. Something told him to leave it there. It was a message or maybe a warning.

The room was a dim cave again, but now, the static carried a name.