Echo of What We Never Were
summary: In a future where memories can be recorded and sold, James discovers a forgotten clip buried in a batch of discarded files. When he watches it, he sees himself walking along a beach beside someone he doesn’t recognize, someone who laughs, holds his hand, and calls his name with intimacy. But that memory never existed.
Wanting to understand who the woman is and why he feels so deeply connected to her, he follows the clues in the recording to search for her. When he finally finds her, he discovers that she also has a “fabricated” memory with him.
Neither of them knows whether they’re meeting for the first time… or rediscovering something that was supposed to be.
★ james x fem!────୨ৎ──── genre:fluff
The first thing James notices is the breathing. Short, rhythmic, almost merging with the sound of the sea. The recording begins with him walking along the sand, the sky violet from a sunset too impossible to have been real. And beside him… her. Rebeca.
Or rather, a version of her he has never seen.
In the memory, she holds his hand as if it were a habit. Fingers intertwined, warm closeness, the light laugh that makes his chest tighten. And then she calls his name, “James,” with an intimacy that cuts through the screen like a blade.
But James has never stepped on that beach. And he had never met Rebeca.
He pauses the file. The sound freezes, but the impact doesn’t. The sensation feels like a déjà vu that hurts.
The laboratory is empty when he faces the holographic screen, enlarging details of the recording: the chain around her neck, the striped jacket he’s never seen, the tide too white to look natural. It’s an artificial memory, he knows that. But why? And whose?
He spends hours tracking fragments, codes, identifiers forgotten in the file. Until he finds a name: Rebeca.
Finding her is easy. Facing her is not.
He waits for her outside a memory-repair center, sitting on a metal bench, adjusting a monitoring bracelet. She looks tired, like someone who sleeps little because the past keeps chasing her. When she lifts her eyes, they meet his and for a moment, something breaks. As if she were also seeing a ghost.
— You’re James… aren’t you? — she asks, almost in a whisper. He folds in on himself. — I think I am. — He hesitates. — You saw it, didn’t you? The beach. She pales. — Yes.
Silence. Heavy silence, full of what neither of them understands.
Rebeca inhales deeply, like someone preparing for an old pain. — The first time I watched it… I felt longing. For you. — She bites her lip, nervous. — But I’ve never met you. He nods, feeling the same vertigo. — I felt it too. As if… something were missing. She grips her jacket, her fingers trembling slightly. — When I went to the technician to erase it… he said it wasn’t just a memory. It was a pairing. A file that only works when it finds the other half. James feels his stomach drop. — So… someone recorded both of us. Separate. Incomplete. Rebeca closes her eyes. — And then put it together. Like they wanted us to meet.
A cold wind passes between them, taking away any illusion of control.
They walk to an abandoned pier, without deciding anything. They just go, guided by that strange feeling, familiarity, anguish, longing. The night sea reflects the city like a shattered mirror.
— In the memory… — she begins, staring at the water — you told me the world was fixing what it took from us. James tries to swallow the knot in his throat. — And you told me you didn’t believe in destiny. She lets out a weak laugh. — I still don’t.
He steps closer, slowly. — But do you believe in us? She doesn’t answer right away. She just studies his face as if searching for something that should be there. Something that, somehow, is.
— I don’t know if we exist — she says, voice thick. — But I missed someone I’ve never met. That… that isn’t normal. James wants to touch her hand. He doesn’t.
— Rebeca… maybe the memory isn’t real. But what I felt when I saw you was. She blinks, and a tear slips free. — I’m afraid all of this is just programming. — She presses a hand to her chest. — And that this feeling is just… code. He steps forward. — The files may have been fabricated. But this pain here — he points at his own chest — isn’t. — And I know you feel it too.
Rebeca looks at him, vulnerable, as if her life had just split into before and after this conversation. — If this is a mistake…? — she asks softly. — Then we’ll find out together.
For a moment, the world is just the two of them. The distant sound of the sea. The city’s reflection. And two strangers who recognize each other without knowing why.
Rebeca extends her hand, slowly. James takes it. And something like memory, destiny, accident, it doesn’t matter, fits into place. As if it were the oldest gesture in the world.
In the file, on the artificial beach, the sun sets. On the pier, in real life, the night is just beginning.
And for the first time, James feels he is living something that wasn’t programmed. Something that belongs to them. Even if they don’t know what it means.