Chapter 88: The First Signs.
Raquel sat on the couch an hour later, talking to Liam about their plans for the day. She was mid-sentence when her words just stopped.
"We should probably figure out how to..." she trailed off, staring blankly at the wall.
Liam looked up from his phone. "How to what?"
Raquel blinked several times. "I don’t know. What was I saying?"
"You were talking about figuring something out."
"Right, but what was it?" She pressed her fingers to her temples. "I knew what I was going to say, and then it just disappeared."
Liam set his phone down. "You’re probably just tired. We haven’t been sleeping well."
"Maybe." But Raquel’s voice was uncertain. She tried to remember what she had been thinking about before she spoke, but it was like reaching for smoke. The thought had been there a moment ago, clear and complete, and now it was gone.
Liam picked up his phone again and started scrolling, then stopped. "That’s weird."
"What?"
"I’m trying to remember which flight we took to get here. It was just a few days ago, but I can’t recall it."
Raquel thought about it. "It was...I don’t know either."
And what time did we land? Was it morning or afternoon?"
They both sat in silence, trying to pull up memories that should have been easy to access. The details felt fuzzy around the edges, like trying to remember a dream after waking up.
"This is probably just stress," Raquel said, though her voice shook slightly. "We’ve been dealing with a lot. The surveillance, the photographs, everything with Mira."
"Right, stress."
But Liam didn’t sound convinced, and neither was Raquel.
Mira emerged from her room looking refreshed, as if she’d actually slept well. She noticed them sitting quietly on the couch and smiled.
"How are you both feeling this morning?"
"Fine," Raquel said automatically, then added, "Actually, a bit foggy. Like I can’t quite focus."
Mira’s expression shifted to concern. "That’s probably the stress catching up with you. You’ve both been running on adrenaline for days. Your bodies need rest."
"I keep forgetting things," Liam admitted. "Small things, but still."
"That’s completely normal when you’re exhausted and anxious," Mira assured him. She sat down in the chair across from them. "Your brain is overloaded with threat assessment and our survival. It doesn’t have the capacity to hold onto minor details right now."
"Is that really what this is?" Raquel asked.
"Of course. Look, you’ve been dealing with surveillance, unknown threats, being in a foreign country away from everything familiar. Your minds are trying to process too much information at once. Some things are bound to slip out."
Mira’s explanation made sense, but something about it felt off to Raquel. She couldn’t put her finger on what was bothering her.
"You should both try to rest today," Mira continued. "Don’t push yourselves. Let your minds recover."
As the morning wore on, the moments of confusion became more frequent. Raquel picked up her phone to call someone, unlocked it, and then stared at the screen with no idea who she had intended to contact.
"Who was I going to call?" she asked aloud.
Liam looked over from where he was sitting. "I don’t know. Who were you going to call?"
"I can’t remember. I had someone in mind, I picked up my phone, and now I have no idea."
Liam opened his laptop and stared at the screen. He’d had a clear purpose when he opened it, he was certain of that. But now he couldn’t recall what he’d been planning to do. Check email? Look up something? The intention had vanished completely.
He closed the laptop and rubbed his eyes. "This is getting worse."
"What is?"
"The forgetting. I opened this to do something specific and now I have no clue what it was."
Raquel felt a spike of fear. "Me too. I just tried to call someone and I can’t remember who."
Mira had been watching them from across the room, taking mental notes. The first dose was working exactly as expected. The confusion was setting in faster than she’d anticipated, which was actually good. It meant their minds were particularly receptive to the potion.
"Listen," Mira said, standing up and walking over to them. "I think you’re both experiencing the effects of extreme stress and sleep deprivation. This happens to people in high pressure situations. Your short term memory gets compromised."
"But this feels different," Raquel said. "It’s not just forgetting where I put my keys. It’s like thoughts are disappearing while I’m having them."
"That’s a classic symptom of exhaustion," Mira said smoothly. "Your brains are trying to shut down and rest, but you’re forcing them to stay active. The result is these gaps in processing."
Liam wanted to believe her, but something was nagging at him. "Has this happened to you?"
"Not yet, but I’ve been managing my stress better. And I’ve been sleeping more than you two have."
This was true. Mira did seem more rested and alert than either of them felt.
"Maybe we should see a doctor," Raquel suggested.
"For stress related memory issues?" Mira shook her head. "They’ll just tell you to rest and maybe prescribe anti-anxiety medication. We can’t risk going to a hospital right now anyway, not with people watching us."
She had a point. Going to a hospital would create a paper trail that could be tracked.
"Just give it a day or two," Mira urged. "Get some proper rest. Eat well. Let your minds recover naturally. If it’s not better in a few days, then we can figure out what to do."
Raquel nodded slowly, though the fear hadn’t left her eyes. "Okay. A few days."
The afternoon brought more incidents. Raquel would start to say something and then forget mid-word what she was talking about.
At one point, she opened the refrigerator and just stared at the contents, unable to remember what she’d been looking for. Was she hungry? Thirsty? Getting something for someone else? The knowledge was gone.
Mira realized she might need to administer the second dose sooner than planned. Their confusion was making them ask questions, and questions were dangerous. She needed to move them into the next phase before they started connecting dots or seeking help from outside sources.
Around four in the afternoon, Raquel remembered her journal. She’d been keeping notes about everything strange that had happened, all her suspicions about Mira and the situation they were in. Maybe reading her own words would help ground her.
She found the journal tucked in her bag and opened it to the most recent entries. Her handwriting stared back at her, clear and familiar. But as she read the words, they felt disconnected from her somehow.
"I don’t trust Mira anymore. She’s hiding something big. The way she acted about my dream was wrong. She knows more than she’s saying."
Raquel remembered writing this, at least she thought she did. But the emotion behind it felt distant, like she was reading someone else’s concerns. She couldn’t fully connect to the fear and suspicion her past self had felt.
She flipped back further. More entries about Mira’s strange behavior, about the surveillance, about feeling like they were in danger. All written in her handwriting, all describing events she could vaguely recall, but none of it felt real anymore.
"Liam," she said, her voice shaking. "Something’s really wrong."
He came over immediately. "What is it?"
She showed him the journal. "I wrote all of this. I remember writing it. But when I read it now, it doesn’t feel like my thoughts. It’s like I’m reading about a different person’s life."
Liam took the journal and scanned the entries. "These are your concerns about Mira?"
"They were. I think. But now..." She struggled to find the words. "I can’t connect to them emotionally. I know I should be worried about these things, but I can’t feel the worry anymore."
"Mira," Liam called out, still holding the journal.
Mira appeared in the doorway. Raquel noticed how quickly she’d responded, as if she’d been listening.
"What’s wrong?"
Liam held up the journal. "Raquel’s been documenting everything, but now when she reads her own entries, she can’t connect to them."
Mira’s mind raced. This was a complication. The journal was evidence of Raquel’s original thoughts and feelings, a anchor point that could interfere with the memory modification process.
"Let me see," she said, taking the journal from Liam.
She flipped through the pages, seeing Raquel’s suspicions laid out in detail. This needed to disappear.
"This is actually concerning," Mira said, her voice filled with false worry. "Raquel, this level of dissociation from your own recent memories is a sign of severe psychological stress. You’re not just forgetting things, you’re disconnecting from your own experiences."
"What does that mean?" Raquel asked, fear clear in her voice.
"It means you need to rest immediately. Your mind is trying to protect itself by creating distance from traumatic stress. If you push too hard, you could have a complete breakdown."
"A breakdown?"
"Your brain would essentially shut down certain functions to protect itself. You could lose days or weeks of memory, not just small details."
"What do we do?" Liam asked.
"Rest. Complete rest. No trying to remember things, no reading old journal entries, no pushing your minds to work. Just sleep and let your brains recover."
Mira tucked the journal under her arm. "I’ll hold onto this for now. Looking at it is clearly causing more stress than it’s relieving."
"Wait," Raquel said weakly. "That’s mine."
"And I’ll give it back when you’re better. Right now it’s just making things worse."
Before Raquel could protest further, Mira’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen and saw Everett’s name.
"I need to take this," she said, walking into her room with both the phone and Raquel’s journal.
She closed the door and answered. "Everett."
"Mira, we have a problem. The surveillance on your location has intensified. I’m seeing multiple vehicles now, not just one. They’re setting up for something."
"How much time do we have?"
"I don’t know. Could be hours, could be days. But you need to be ready to move quickly."
Mira looked at Raquel’s journal in her hand, then thought about the two people in her living room whose minds were slowly dissolving under the influence of her potion.
"I can’t move yet. I’m not ready."
"Not ready? Mira, if these people decide to move on you, ready won’t matter."
"I need two more days. Three at most. Then we can relocate."
"You might not have two days."
She hung up and opened Raquel’s journal to a random page, reading the detailed documentation of suspicions and fears. This was dangerous. She needed to destroy it.
But first, she needed to figure out how to administer the second dose of the potion tomorrow instead of waiting two more days. The timeline had just accelerated, and she would have to adjust her plans accordingly.