The Town That Forgot Itself

THE TOWN THAT FORGOT ITSELF

I. The Fog Rolls In

Bridgemoor had always been a quiet town—just a handful of streets, a clock tower that no one could remember ever working, and a town square where people gathered though they could never say why. It was a place of routine, of simple days stretching into years. And most importantly, it had always been this way.

No one could recall a time before the fog.

The mist wrapped around the town like an old, familiar blanket. It slithered down Main Street, curled around the lampposts, and swallowed the edges of Bridgemoor whole. If anyone ever thought to ask where the roads beyond town led, they quickly lost interest. If anyone once had family outside Bridgemoor, they had long since faded from memory.

That was simply how life was. And so, no one questioned it.

Until Elliot began to remember.

II. The Cracks Appear

It started small—just a feeling that something was off. A flicker of unease when he looked at the fog too long. A stray thought that nagged at him as he flipped through the town's archives in the library.

Then, one morning, he woke up with a name on his lips. A name that didn’t belong to anyone in Bridgemoor.

"Margaret."

The problem was—he didn’t know a Margaret. He was sure of that. Except… the certainty wavered. The harder he thought, the more the fog whispered doubt.

Maybe he had once known her.

Maybe she had been erased.

That was when he saw the journal.

III. The Journal That Shouldn’t Exist

It was buried beneath a pile of old books in the library’s backroom, covered in dust. At first glance, it was nothing special—until Elliot flipped through the pages and found entries written in his own handwriting.

But he had no memory of writing them.

"Bridgemoor is changing. I don’t know how long I have. The mist is taking people—"

The sentence cut off in a frantic scrawl. Elliot flipped forward and found another entry, barely legible:

"There was a time before the fog. I swear it. But they’re forgetting. And now… I think I’m forgetting too."

His hands shook as he turned the page.

And then, in writing that was unmistakably his, he saw three words that chilled him to the bone:

"DON’T TRUST MARGARET."

IV. The Woman in the Fog

Elliot didn’t remember how he got there, but suddenly, he was outside, standing in the thick mist that curled around the town like a living thing. And then he saw her.

A woman standing in the fog, watching him.

Her dark eyes locked onto his, wide with something between relief and terror.

"You remember, don’t you?" she whispered.

The sound of her voice sent a jolt through him. His pulse pounded. Margaret. He knew her.

Memories flooded back in fragmented pieces—a laugh, a hand in his, a whispered secret. But as quickly as they came, the fog pushed back, shrouding them in doubt.

"I—" he hesitated.

She stepped forward, her voice urgent. "We don’t have much time. If we don’t stop this now, we’ll forget everything—ourselves, each other, the truth."

"The truth?" Elliot repeated.

Margaret exhaled sharply, glancing around. "Bridgemoor isn’t real. Not the way we think it is."

The fog swirled. The ground beneath them shifted. Elliot felt unsteady, as if reality itself were slipping beneath his feet.

And then the screaming began.

V. The Town That Devours Itself

It started as whispers, voices from the fog. Then, the town began unraveling.

The clock tower struck midnight, over and over again.

Buildings melted into the mist.

The people of Bridgemoor blinked out of existence, one by one, as if they had never been there at all.


Margaret grabbed Elliot’s arm. "We have to go to the Root."

"The what?"

She yanked him forward. "The center of it all. The thing keeping this town alive. If we destroy it—"

"What happens to us?"

She hesitated. And in that moment, Elliot saw fear in her eyes.

"I don’t know."

VI. The Root of the Lie

The church sat at the highest point in Bridgemoor. It had always been there, looming over the town like a forgotten relic.

Inside, the air was thick, the walls stretching impossibly high, as if the fog had taken root inside the very foundation. And at the center of it all—

A massive, twisting mass of flesh and memory.

It pulsed like a living heart, shifting and writhing. Faces emerged in its surface—faces of people they had forgotten. The mayor. The shopkeeper. A child who once played in the streets.

Margaret’s voice trembled. "The Root feeds on memory. It erases everything beyond the town so Bridgemoor can exist. And once you forget something…" She swallowed. "It’s gone forever."

Elliot’s hands clenched into fists. "Then we destroy it."

VII. The Final Choice

As they stepped forward, the Root spoke.

Not in words, but in memories.

Elliot saw himself as a child, running through a backyard that shouldn’t exist.

Margaret saw her daughter—her nonexistent daughter—smiling at her.

The Root whispered in their voices: "Stay. You belong here."


If they destroyed it, would they still exist?

If the town had never been real, were they?

Margaret turned to him, her voice barely a breath. "What if we were never meant to wake up?"

Elliot swallowed hard. "Then maybe it’s time we did."

He reached out—

And touched the Root.

VIII. The Town That Never Was

A bright flash.

A collapsing town.

Then… silence.

Elliot gasped, his lungs burning. He was lying on his back, staring at a sky that shouldn’t exist. The fog was gone. The air was clear. The town—Bridgemoor—was nowhere to be seen.

He sat up, heart pounding.

"Margaret?"

No response.

He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings. It was a small town, unfamiliar. The streets were clean. The sun was shining.

He stumbled to his feet, catching a glimpse of himself in a store window.

And froze.

The reflection staring back was not his own.

His face was different. His clothes unfamiliar. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet—a different ID. A different name.

Had he escaped?

Or had the fog simply given him a new life?

A cold dread settled in his chest.

Final words whispered in his mind:

"Did I wake up? Or did I forget?"


---

THE END.