Jason couldn’t move.
The words stayed stuck in his mind like broken glass.
I finally found you.
Around him, the wedding ceremony was still happening but it felt distant now, like it was happening underwater. Voices blurred. Chairs creaked. Someone laughed far away, unaware that something had just shifted inside the room.
Amara tightened her grip on his arm.
“Jason… you’re shaking.”
He didn’t answer.
Because he couldn’t explain what he was feeling.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
The woman was still there.
Still watching.
Still smiling like she had already won something no one else knew was being played.
Jason forced himself to swallow.
Then, finally, he whispered, “We need to leave.”
Amara frowned. “What? Why? It’s our ceremony”
“Now.”
Something in his voice cut through her confusion. She had never heard him sound like that before. Not urgent. Not angry.
Terrified.
Before she could respond, the pastor paused mid-sentence, finally noticing the tension rippling through the crowd.
“What’s going on?” someone murmured.
But Jason wasn’t listening anymore.
Because the woman had started moving again.
This time, faster.
Not rushing but certain.
Like someone following a path she had walked in her mind a thousand times before.
She stopped just a few steps away from the aisle.
Close enough now that Jason could see her clearly.
Her skin looked too calm.
Too still.
Like time didn’t touch her the same way it touched everyone else.
“Jason,” she said softly.
Hearing his name from her mouth broke something inside him.
Amara looked between them. “You know her?”
Jason didn’t answer.
Because the truth had a weight he couldn’t carry out loud.
The woman tilted her head.
“You told yourself you buried everything,” she said gently. “You told yourself it was gone.”
A few guests shifted uncomfortably. Someone stood, unsure if this was part of the ceremony or something else entirely.
Jason stepped back.
“No,” he muttered. “You’re not real.”
The woman’s smile deepened.
“Oh, I’m very real.”
She reached into her handbag again.
This time, Jason flinched.
But she didn’t pull out a weapon.
She pulled out a small folded paper.
Old. Yellowed at the edges.
She held it up.
Not to the crowd.
Only to him.
Jason’s breath caught.
Because he recognized it immediately.
His handwriting.
His signature.
A promise.
One he had sworn never existed outside his memory.
Amara saw his face change again.
“Jason… what is that?”
He didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
The woman unfolded the paper slowly, like she wanted him to suffer through every second.
Then she spoke again.
“You said you would come back.”
Silence dropped over the entire room.
Even the music stopped.
Jason’s voice cracked when he finally spoke.
“That’s not possible.”
The woman stepped closer.
“You made a promise,” she said. “And you broke it.”
The lights in the hall flickered once.
Just once.
But it was enough.
Because Jason remembered.
And the memory he had buried all those years ago
was starting to wake up.
TO BE CONTINUED.