The Memory Thief

TITLE: THE MEMORY THIEF

A HEIST OF THE HEART

WRITTEN BY: LEGACY WORDS

Elias worked as a cleaner at a special hospital called the Mnemosyne Clinic. Here, people could have their sad memories erased. The machine that did this hummed constantly—a sound Elias knew well. It was the sound of forgetting.

He watched patients walk out looking peaceful, their pain left behind in small glass vials. Those vials were usually stored away deep underground.

But Elias knew a dark secret. The strongest, most painful memories weren’t stored. They were stolen and sold online to rich collectors who wanted to feel other people's strongest emotions.

Elias had a secret of his own. Using an old audio recorder, he would talk to patients before their procedure. He’d offer them water and ask, "Would you like to talk about it one last time?" He recorded their stories. At home, he had shelves full of tapes. He did this because he believed their pain was a part of who they were, and it shouldn’t just be sold.

One night, he was checking the secret auction website, as he often did. He saw a new memory for sale. The preview picture was a rainy bus stop at the corner of Forest and Elm Street. His heart stopped. He knew that place. He had waited for his sister there many times.

He played the memory. The view looked around the bus shelter and focused on a pair of trembling hands. On one wrist was a small, faded tattoo of a sparrow.

It was his sister, Elara. She had disappeared seven years ago. The police stopped looking. His parents died from sadness. But Elias never gave up.

Then he heard the audio, a heartbroken whisper: “He said he’d be here. He promised.”

It was her voice. The clinic had found a memory of her final, terrible moments and was now selling her pain.

Elias knew he had to steal it back. The memory was locked in a case in his boss’s office. During his next shift, he created a distraction by filling the hall with steam from a broken pipe. In the chaos, he slipped into the office.

There it was. Her memory glowed with a stormy, gray light inside its vial. As he reached for it, the door flew open. His boss, Valerius, stood there.

“The cleaner,” Valerius said angrily. “I should have known it was you. Put that down. It’s worth more money than you’ll ever see.”

Elias held the vial tightly. It felt warm in his hand. “This isn’t for sale.”

“Everything is for sale,” Valerius snapped.

“You only want this because you can’t feel anything yourself,” Elias said. Then, he pressed play on his recorder. His sister’s voice filled the room.

“He said he’d be here. He promised.”

The raw sadness in her voice made Valerius freeze for a second. It was all the time Elias needed. He shoved past him and ran.

He didn’t run for the exit. He ran to the room with the memory-erasing machine. He locked the door behind him, holding his sister’s memory.

He thought about using the machine to put the memory into his own mind. He could finally know what happened to her.

But then he understood. This memory wasn’t about what happened to her. It was a memory of her waiting for him. It was a memory of being left alone and feeling that a promise was broken.

He couldn’t bear to feel that. And he knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to.

With a cry of both sadness and relief, Elias shoved the vial into a slot on the machine marked “DISPOSE.” There was a small cracking sound and the gray light inside faded away forever.

He didn’t steal the memory to own it. He stole it to set it free. He might never know the truth of her disappearance, but he had freed them both from her final moment of pain. The machine hummed, but now it was just a sound. For the first time in seven years, the silence felt peaceful.