Page 48 of Thanks for the Memories

How? How?!

How could someone with a smile that lit up every room she entered be dying?

How is it that she looked alive on the outside but something inside of her was conspiring against her—against my best friend—and causing her to die too soon?

She has her whole life ahead of her. We have our whole lives ahead of us.

There’s no way this is it. I can’t believe it. I refuse.

If there was ever a time to change the tapestry of my thinking, it was then. I hoped for a miracle, I talked to the sky begging for something—anything—that would make her better. I’d trade places. I’d do anything.

Which brings me to where I am now. In the basement of Memoria Games with a flashlight in one hand, and an offering in the other.

No one is allowed down here. It was one of the first things we were told once hired. There was never much else said about it, and none of us employees ever asked. That is until my desperation to change the fate she begged me to accept clung to me and wouldn’t let me go.

I spent hours upon hours researching remedies, anything and everything that could possibly take her pain away and cure her, but nothing came of it, until I was set to close the store on my own and I heard a noise that led me down a rabbit hole that led to the basement.

At first, it was so faint I almost brushed it off as nothing until the noise increased to a level I couldn’t ignore.

Goose bumps pebbled my skin. My gut twisted, mingling with my subconscious, silently begging me to reconsider. But my heart told me to find something to break the chains, to ignore the fear trying to deter me, and run toward it, not away.

Turns out I didn’t have to find anything. A key to open the door fell out of nowhere and found me.

It didn’t take long for me to realize no one was allowed in the basement for good reason. The rumors of it being haunted weren’t rumors. They were a warning to steer clear of the entity lurking within the shadows.

I saw nothing, but I heard it loud and clear. “What do you wish for most?”

Without hesitation, I answered. “Her life to be spared.”

I want my Lia to live. I need her to be cured. To share her talents with the world. To grow up with me. To grow old alongside.

To not leave this earth.

No questions were asked. Only instructions were given. They were simple. “To gain what you desire, you must provide an offering unique to you and you alone. Once received, you may speak your wish into existence. Then the exchange will be complete.”

The only offering I could provide that was remotely unique to me was ironically the game I began brainstorming as a way to distract myself after Lia broke the news that there was nothing left the doctors could do for her.

“This is your offering?” the cloaked specter asks. I can’t tell if they’re disgusted or pleased, its voice is eerily monotoned.