Alex remembered. Snow crunched beneath his pounding boots. His breath, ragged and charged, froze before him in the still air. Alex only did this when he was in danger—burning his memories of the past few minutes, then waking as if startled from a deep sleep. Was he that low on memories? Details from the past hours materialized, beginning as blurred shapes, then sharpening. He was in the woods of Silence. He came from a hunting trip, but didn’t catch anything. His watchtower was a few miles away. He was running from a bear.

Bear. He heard the beast’s growl behind him drawing closer. He looked down at his arm, whose bruised skin was now healing. He really hoped that healing that injury was worth it, because context to his situation would have been very helpful. The bear’s roar sent a jolt through Alex’s body. Great spire-like trees loomed over him, cutting deep shadows into the rocky wilds. Mountains poked out of the snow like the hands of gods, and forgotten sculptures of rusted iron and rotted wood stood still from now until forever. He darted through Silence’s heavy snow as he wove his way through the remnants of an abandoned town. 

Alex rummaged through the memories he still had. How many had he burned through to escape the bear? The memory of his face was gone, but that was usually the first to go if he was in a pinch. In the endless cold of Silence, he could always find his reflection in a frozen pond somewhere. In one memory, he encountered a wolf from a distance. In another, he was reading a rusted sign from a derelict outpost. Names were important, especially ones he may never read again. It was an old one, too. He really should hold onto it. But even further, his oldest memory sat like a precious dream. The misty-eyed woman laughing. The house, baked in golden sun. Even though he knew he’d never burn it, the thought tormented him.

The bear’s growl yanked him back to the present. He clutched the memory of the wolf and burned it. A familiar warmth bloomed from the center of his chest. His pace quickened, and his eyesight sharpened, but the pain from his legs lingered. Strange. The memory should’ve been more potent. Each memory he burned in a short span became less effective than the last. He must’ve burned through quite a few already. He needed more time. The bear’s growl grew closer and closer. Ahead, a snow-capped hill sloped into a black cliff. If he could just reach it…

Snap. Alex’s vision blurred as the bear swatted him into the rock wall. Was that the sound of his rib breaking or his arm? Everything hurt. He burned the sign he had seen and scrambled up the cliff. The bear roared at him, scraping its claws against the stone. Alex’s chest throbbed from the impact, but he couldn’t afford any more important memories. Besides, the watchtower he called home wasn’t far. He shuffled up the hillside and wondered how many times he had seen that bear before, and how many times it had decided it wanted him dead. He didn’t care. Only one memory of his mattered. Alex burned his memory of the bear, feeling the warmth bloom.

—

Some memories were more expensive than others. Faces, names, and friends—if they could be called that—were a lifeline in Silence. Sometimes he’d see a familiar face, and they’d share a fire. For a moment, their presence felt like it could press back the endless cold. You never knew if a stranger was going to steal your clothes and food, but friends you could trust. Their memories had weight, heavy as iron. He carried them gladly. But burning memories had a twisted logic. The more significant the memory, the longer and more pronounced the effect. People got into tight spots. Some memories, even important ones, were expendable when compared to an untimely death. More than once, he passed by someone he once knew and was only met with a hollow stare. The feeling hurt less after so long. After all, he couldn’t blame them for burning his memory. This version of them didn’t choose to—that self was dead, and another had taken its place. He’d pass by without saying a word. Sometimes, he’d burn their memory too.

Alex never thought he would be the first one to give that hollow stare. And yet as he approached the woman at the base of the watchtower, he knew that he had. He recognized that look of familiarity. What did he forget? He jostled through fragmented images and names, trying to dredge up a memory that matched hers. But nothing did. The woman had skin a shade darker than his, and a solid build. Yet he found that his eyes were drawn to her eyes and lips.

She cautiously approached him, as if she was scared to startle him. The stranger’s eyes watered, and she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh god, you’re alive!” she said. Alex awkwardly patted her on the back.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back. “I, um—I left my horse tied up down by the shed. I hope that’s okay. You look… different.” 

Alex nodded. He almost burned the memory of her words, so he could hear them for the first time again. He stopped himself. The woman opened her mouth again, but words didn’t come out. He should run away. That was the easiest way to solve most problems in Silence.

“I have food in the tower,” he found himself saying instead.

—

Alex had lit a small fire in the potbellied furnace. It filled the watchtower with a crackling warm light, but somehow it still felt cold. They sat on the ground near one another with their food. The stranger picked at a steaming pile of canned something with one of his bent forks. Alex had already eaten half of his canned something-else, even though it was scalding hot. Better than starting a conversation with someone who he had burned.

The stranger finally looked up. “You don’t remember who I am, do you?”

Alex’s eyes were pinned to the floorboards. He shook his head. She nodded as her eyes fell to the ground. Instinctively, he wanted to fix whatever made her upset.

“Were we close?” he said. “Wait—I don’t want to know. How did you know I’d be here?”

Her expression eased as she looked out of the frosted window. “When you were young, you told me that whenever someone asked what job you were going to have, you said you wanted to work here. I don’t think you even knew what this tower was used for. A fire lookout tower, maybe. I don’t think you cared.” Her words drew an outline of someone fuller, more detailed than he would ever be. For a brief moment, he hated her for knowing.

“The last time we saw each other, you told me you’d be here. I didn’t know if you were coming back, or lost, or…” Or dead. The woman took a deep breath.

“How long has it been?”

“Nineteen months,” she said without skipping a beat. “I would have come here sooner, but traveling isn’t easy without cars. You should be glad we got those horseback lessons. Which you probably don’t remember either.” Her expression fell. “You probably don’t even know my name.”

Alex leaned forward. “Then tell me—tell me about you, and the rest of the world. I’ve always wondered where everybody went. Was there a war? Did everyone just decide to leave?”

“I’m Clara,” she replied. “And no, not all at once. Not violently. You couldn’t always burn memories. When the burning started, people started to forget our way of life. Soon enough, there weren’t many who remembered. Eventually, it seemed better to go our separate ways.”

“Is that what happened to us?” Alex asked. He hadn’t realized how close he had gotten to her. Now, he could make out every detail of her face and expression. Her eyes glowed like sapphires in the firelight. She tilted her head whenever she asked a question. He tried to memorize everything about her appearance, not to one day burn it, but to hold onto it endlessly.

She closed the distance and kissed him. When she finally leaned back, her eyes lingered on his. “To answer your question from before: yes. We were very close.”

Together on his bed, Alex discovered something new: a feeling like fire that bloomed from the center of his chest and spread into his limbs. A fire that needed only her to sustain itself. In the warmth of that fire, Alex was certain he would never need to burn a memory again.

—

“Alex, do you copy? Over.”

Clara’s voice crackled over Alex’s receiver, a black plastic box with an antenna jutting from its top. It fit into his hand nicely. Alex understood guns and flashlights well enough, but radios confounded him. How could you throw your voice miles across the wilderness and have someone catch it with the click of a receiver?

“Alex, please answer. Alex!”

“Sorry, I um—I’ll head there now,” he said into the receiver. “Over and out.” 

Alex clipped the receiver to his belt. He had chosen a rocky hill in the shade of tall evergreens as his lookout point to wait for Clara until she gave him the all-clear. Clara had a folded map with points of interest dotted across it, like houses of people she once knew, gas stations, and survival bunkers. They’d been scouring derelict towns near the southern border of Silence. Or the Silent Woods, as Clara had told him. He still preferred Silence.

Alex spotted the winding path of hoof prints in the snow as he trudged down the hill. Clara had ridden her horse, Caesar, to the old bunker. Clara had told him he already had practiced horseback riding in his former life, and he was finding it easier than he had first thought. “Muscle memory” she called it, just like how he could use a gun without having any memories of learning how to. She’d told him many other things from his life, too, like how they used to live in Bear’s Hollow, a small town in Silence, before Clara, his family, and most others had left for a “safe haven” a few hundred miles over. He’d learned how to hunt game from his father, and the instincts still hadn’t left him. He never asked why he stayed, or about the house in his memories. What if they had a fight or he just couldn’t work up the courage to leave? What if the house wasn’t as he remembered? Clara held all of his memories of his childhood and family, but the house’s memory was his. Alex remembered sitting in a field at sunset, as an older woman told him to come inside. As he approached the wrap-around porch, he could hear gentle piano music and laughter. He’d only mentioned it to Clara a handful of times. That memory was best left for long walks like these.

Days had been growing longer in Silence. Alex could feel it. The air was growing warmer, and the snow had begun to recede. Alex had never held enough memories to draw comparisons, but with Clara he didn’t need to burn memories anymore. Clara told him that the world went through ‘seasons’, changes in its weather and appearance, but Alex didn’t understand change. His memories of Silence were stark and pure, everything frozen and colorless. Now the woods were morphing into something else.

The bunker’s scratched metal cover sat in a clearing next to the charred frame of a house. Judging by the snow-covered stumps nearby, the trees likely burned down a while ago. Caesar was tied up to a fence post. Alex walked up and scratched the side of his head, receiving a whinny in return. The horse’s white coat with gray splotches made him blend into the snow, which was the reason she had picked him. He knocked on the bunker’s cover with his gloved hand.

A moment later, he heard a creak and a thud as the door unlatched and swung open, revealing Clara on top of the entrance ladder. Her blue eyes shone in the overcast sky. She was dressed similar to Alex in a heavy brown coat they’d taken from a cabin near the watchtower. Alex tried to etch every detail of her face into his mind, so that he’d never forget. He’d never known that memories could lose details over time, but now he had enough of them that they had begun to corrode. He never wanted to lose another detail again. Not with her.

Clara smiled like she was hiding something. “What?” he asked. “Do I have something in my beard again?”

“You have to come see what I found.”

Alex slid down the ladder into the dark and clicked on his flashlight. On top of the dusty bed was a metal container that looked like a tackle box. Clara pulled out a dusty photograph from a pile and presented it to him. It was a younger Alex, maybe eighteen. He held a large fish with his free hand. He was smiling with his arm wrapped around a man with a white beard and a battered camouflage ballcap. The man was old enough to be… to be…

Alex dropped the photo. “I—this can’t,” he said as he took a step backwards. “This can’t be the first time I see my dad.”

Clara grabbed his arm and looked at him like he was injured. “Hey, you’re alright—it’s okay. That’s not your dad, it’s an old family friend. I just thought you’d want to see it.”

“Let’s just go back to the watchtower.” He gently pulled Clara closer. “Please.”

Her smile vanished quickly. “Okay.” Clara plucked a few other things off the shelves and placed them into the metal container. She was collecting photographs and other mementos for friends and for historical purposes, she had told him. Alex didn’t feel like he belonged in any of her records.

They ascended the ladder and rode back to the watchtower in silence. Clara steered Caesar, and Alex sat in the back, just like how it had always been.

—

Despite living here together for nearly two months, the watchtower wasn’t much more decorated than when Alex had lived here alone. They’d brought the two metal-frame beds together in the center of the room and covered it with blankets in order to conceal the giant seam in the middle. Alex’s side to the right was floorboards and a few hunting implements, while Clara’s held piles of keepsakes. He was surprised the watchtower didn’t tip over from the imbalance.

Alex crashed onto their bed. His legs ached. He could walk forever, but riding a horse’s back took a toll on his body. He turned his head towards Clara, who sat on her side of the bed, and was already beginning to unpack her findings and sort them. He quietly inched over to her side and wrapped his arms around her chest, pulling her down into a hug.

“Alex!” Clara shouted. She giggled, her hair splayed out on the blankets. Clara turned her head towards him. Sapphire eyes. Dark hair reflecting the light streaming in from the windows. Lips curled in a half-smile. Looking at her filled the hollow place where all his memories once were. Alex smiled. He never wanted to look away.

“What?” she said. “Do I have something in my beard?”

“I don’t know,” he said, as he leaned his head towards hers. “Let me see.”

Alex closed the distance and kissed Clara. He held their embrace until they were both breathless and about to fall off the bed. Clara giggled and pulled her hair away from her face.

“We used to sneak off and make out behind the bleachers in high school,” Clara said, her eyes distant. “It took ages for our parents to figure out what was going on.”

“Oh.” Alex tried to imagine the scene she described, but he could only vaguely recall what a bleacher looked like.

Clara sat up again. “I was just saying it reminded me of how it used to be.”

Alex sat up, his back to Clara’s. He untied his shoes.

“What?” Clara said. “I’m not allowed to talk about your parents or the house, and now I’m not allowed to talk about high school either?”

He pulled off his shoes and tossed them into his corner. “I don’t need your secondhand memories. I was trying to make new ones.”

“I still have them. Am I just supposed to forget too?”

“I just don’t like that you compare me to him,” Alex said.

“Alex, you’re the same person, and I’m not comparing anyone.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Maybe I don’t.” Clara stepped into Alex’s sight. Lips downturned. Arms crossed. Now Alex couldn’t forget this version of her either.

“I look like him, I might talk like him, but I can’t be him, Clara.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted. You lost everything, so I was just trying to give you a piece of your life back. A piece of us back. So really, Alex, I am so sorry.”

Alex swung the furnace open. Anger burned in his gut.

“I mean, what was so great about your Alex anyways?” Alex shoved a log into the furnace and then another. “What, did he sing to you? Did he always agree with you?” Alex threw a lit match into the furnace. “Did he have sex whenever you wanted? Maybe he—”

“He didn’t forget about me!”

Alex heard the crackle from the newborn fire over the silence of the watchtower. Clara drew shaky breaths.

“Why, Alex? We met when we were in high school. You drove five hours in your old pickup truck just to drive me to the airport. You just… left it all behind?”

Alex had no response. Clara wiped the tears pooling at the base of her eyes. “I’ve been searching for the past two months, but I’m never going to get an answer. It died with you, or whoever you used to be.”

Alex latched the furnace closed. “Everything you say about him just reminds me how empty I am. You’re the only history I have, and I lost that too. I didn’t just burn your memories, Clara. I burned you.”

Clara stared at the floor, sniffling. “I just want it like it was. Everything, good and bad.”

“I guess we’re both stuck in the past, then.” They sat at the end of their bed together, watching the snow-covered trees outside the window. Clara spoke first.

“I have to go back to the safe haven, Alex. You can’t be who you were, and I can’t seem to let go of him. You can come with me if you want, but you should see this first.” Clara pulled out the map from her pack and drew a circle around one of the dots with a red pen. “Here. It was supposed to be a surprise. Your childhood home. The same one you described in your memory, with the wrap-around porch. That’s why you stayed here, Alex. You wanted to find it before it was lost forever. Journals, medals, pictures—your old life in a trunk in your bedroom. No more secondhand memories, right? I hope you find what you’re looking for, Alex. Really.”

Clara began to gather her things together. Photos, supplies, her kiss, the memories of her face and their stupid beard jokes. No, no! It couldn’t happen again. But she was already slipping away.

“That’s it?” Alex said.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” Clara replied, still not meeting his eyes.

Alex stood. No more secondhand memories. He could be a real, full person again. He could know things Clara didn’t. “I have to find that house, Clara. You could still come with me.”

“You made your choice, Alex. I have to go back to my life.”

Alex didn’t wait until the morning. He couldn’t watch Clara leave. He took his pack with his hunting supplies and a few extra cans of food. Alex had made plenty of trips alone before Clara. He could do it again, right? He could be alone, couldn’t he?

—

Clara wouldn’t leave him alone, even as he walked miles away from the watchtower. Her bright eyes peered at him through the swaying leaves. Her laugh formed from the drifting wind. Some instinct buried deep beneath his new memories warned him of danger. Clouds in the distance, tall and swiftly approaching, caught the waning light of dusk. The wind had begun to pick up. Snow puffed down onto the branches and wet ground. Alex knew Silence only in winter. He preferred the snow. He did not like to think of what sat just beneath it. Mud, maybe, or stone, or a pile of bones stretching as far as the eyes could see. Maybe nothing at all. He did not like to think of what sat outside of Silence either. The image of that distant place grew twisted and shadowed, the trees turning to spikes, the wolves with teeth of iron. He felt the outside world reaching in, climbing over the southern range, engulfing the lookout tower and Clara. The cold reached within him and slowed his breath.

He held the house’s memory in his mind, as tight as the map he clutched in his hand. But now the memory morphed, rippling like water. The house was a charred ruin. The woman’s eyes became sapphire as her face formed into Clara’s instead. Why did she bleed into everything?

Night began to descend upon Silence with distant thunder. The map drew Alex further into the frozen woods, down winding paths and into a forgotten city. Rusted silos glowed a hazy red behind a curtain of white. He trudged through the gathering snowstorm, down one last road. Alex’s heart beat like a drum. Before him sat the house. 

—

He found the trunk where Clara had said it would be: upstairs, in his bedroom. He swung it open. Books, photo albums, journals, and dozens of other small trinkets lay inside. Alex searched through all of its contents and hoped that by looking at them he could absorb the person contained within. In the first journal entry, he read, “Clara’s birthday was yesterday. I took her down by Thompson’s Lake and gave her the gift she asked for: a journal. Turns out, she bought me one too, so we could both journal together. Shit deal, isn’t it? Her birthday, and now I’ve got to start writing my feelings down too? Damn. I really don’t deserve that girl.”

Alex didn’t know where Thompson’s Lake was. He didn’t remember giving her a journal. He tore through the rest of the contents and hoped that something would feel familiar, but all he recognized in the box was Clara, and what Clara had told him. Not little league trophies, not old dates with her, not the photos. He ripped out the journal entry and stuffed a photo of Clara and him into his pack. Everything else belonged to a stranger.

Tired, cold, and alone, Alex sat at the edge of the bed. Across from him, a cracked mirror hung on the wall. He recoiled at what he found inside. Dull brown eyes, long hair tucked into a cap, ragged clothing—had he always looked like this? How could someone be in their twenties and still look so old?

Alex unzipped the pack, looking for an answer. At the bottom of its damp canvas, he found a box of matches, half spent. He pulled out a red-tipped match.

—

The house didn’t take long to burn. Columns of fire leapt from the windows and crumbling walls. Alex watched the fire and snow battle for dominion over the dry wood. For a moment, as the house roared and sputtered ashes, it was just as he remembered it. Light and music, fire and wind. But the moment died as the roof caved in with flames licking over its splintered panels. One great funeral pyre to over twenty years of his lost memories.

He took out the picture of Clara and him. Her head was leaned against his chest, and his arm was wrapped around her. Alex seemed at ease with her in his arms. Across a lifetime, the one thing they both could agree on was Clara. Twice, they had chosen one another.

The wind bit into his hands and face. Only now did he register the storm’s ferocity. He hadn’t packed enough warm gear. Clara told him the seasons were changing, and the snow would soon melt. How was winter still holding on? Thunder broke the world apart, and lightning fused it back together. He could never get back in this weather. Not without burning memories. Is this how it happened last time? One memory shaved off at a time until he was reduced to a half-person? How many memories did it take before he burned Clara? Alex found another house and threw open the door. He unclipped his receiver and pressed the button with frigid hands.

“Clara! I don’t know if you can hear this.” The wind picked up outside and blasted through the broken windows. “I’m at Bear’s Hollow. The storm isn’t budging. I can’t make it on foot, not without burning memories. I’m asking you one last favor, then you can leave me behind. That’s what I deserve, right? I found the house. You know, I realized that there was never your Alex or mine. We’re both yours. Isn’t it funny to run so far and find something so obvious? Oh god, I’m so sorry. Over and out.”

Radio silence. Then the receiver crackled to life. “Alex! Get to the town’s entrance, with the old sign. There’s a rest stop there. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just—” the receiver hissed, “—hang on as long—” and cut out.

Alex left the house and began to search for the rest stop. The cold reached past his coat. He began to burn memories for warmth alone. He started with small, insignificant memories of him and Clara. Their trip to the frozen waterfall. Gone. Her face on the night they met. Gone.

Alex stumbled to the city’s entrance. The rest stop Clara mentioned had parts of its glass window broken in, and most of the shelves inside were empty. Alex put his back to the wall. Shouldn’t the memories he burned be more effective? He was giving up pieces of his life for mere minutes. But each successive burn produced less heat. The numbness was spreading into his legs and arms. He needed fire. Alex unzipped his pack and pulled out the remaining matches. But his numb hands couldn’t quite… couldn’t… couldn’t lose Clara…

Alex burned his memories of Silence and the watchtower. He burned his own name. The man pulled his knees to his chest. Snow. Lightning. Thunder. If he burned his memory of the cold, would his body forget too? No, he could burn as many memories as he wanted, but his body would always remember. Muscle memory. Instinct. He would tread the same circles over and over. He would hurt Clara again and again in fresh, new ways, until he withered away, and was buried beneath the endless snow.

Clara… Beyond the window, the man saw a rider upon a white horse. Was it an apparition? He chose to believe. The man lurched to his feet. She was too far. He would never make it without another memory. He clung to his last remaining memories of her. Clear blue eyes. Crossed arms. How had an argument they once had remained whereas everything else was gone? He slammed himself into the door, and it swung open into the gale. Clara was closing in, but he knew he would never make it, even if he could get onto her horse. The howling fury of snow threatened to bury him. He burned his memories of the last few minutes.

The man remembered. His boots trudged through the snow. His breath, ragged and charged, leaked from his mouth. His oldest memory sat like a precious dream. The house.

“Alex!” Clara shouted above the wind. Clara and the house. Clara with arms crossed, sky blue eyes, and eyebrows creased. An argument. He remembered feeling weak and angry. But even a fight shone brighter than his house baked in the golden sun. Because one was a memory, and the other was real. She had already dismounted from her horse and was running towards his malfunctioning body. The house was kindling. She was fire, alive and glowing.

He burned the house. Pain returned in fresh waves to his thawed body. An inferno coursed through his veins. Why did he have so many layers on? The man struggled to his feet. A moment later, Clara nearly tackled him. He could barely stand but he wrapped his arms around her regardless. They needed to get out of this storm, but he didn’t want to let go.

“Clara…” was all he managed to say. But it must have been the right thing, because she hugged him even tighter.

Luke Clifton is an undergraduate at Kansas State University studying Creative Writing and Psychology. He has been writing short stories since the first year of high school. While Luke specializes in writing fiction, especially speculative fiction, he also enjoys photography, shooting films, and writing poetry in his free time.