August 2024

  ***

  About two months have passed since the peace in Shibuya got momentarily disturbed by a giant creature without eyes and way too many jagged teeth on its featureless head sitting perched atop a building. The response from Magical Girls was swift and decisive, causing this unknown threat to retreat into whatever dimension it crawled out of. At least that’s how the official story went, as no one was able to even guess the true nature of ‘Kuma’, the patron of the ‘Kuma Group’ named after him, nor the real threat that he helped banish.

  It was a hot August afternoon, with the heat of the summer scorching the asphalt outside. At least the inside of the hospice’s room was air conditioned.

  A family stood gathered around an elderly man, who was blessed to have ample time to prepare himself for the inevitable end that awaits any human being and gathered them all here. One after the other they held his hand, holding back tears as they said their farewells.

  His wife, his two daughters with their own families and his son were all gathered here – allowing him a last look at his grandchildren, too. There were four of them, two for each of his daughters. A man in his thirties, a woman in university, a high school girl and another girl in middle school.

  He had always spoiled Akane, the youngest of them, knowing he’d spend the least amount of time with her before the end. She was the least successful in holding back her tears as well, meekly clinging to his hand as she got his blanket wet with her sobbing. He didn’t mind.

  He caressed her hair and offered her a smile.

  “Don’t worry, Akane. I won’t be truly gone.”

  He smelled roses. Maybe someone carried a bouquet for another room through the corridor.

  “As long as you don’t forget me, I will keep living on in your heart.”

  “Who are you? Please go outside, this is a private room for us to say our goodbyes!” The words came from his daughter as the scent of roses grew stronger.

  ***

  He didn’t know where he was. The bed supporting his dying body was no longer in the hospice, instead standing on a vast field of lilies. All of them showed faces and moments dancing on their petals like they were cinema screens from his younger days. He could hear a beautiful voice singing; was this how people go into the afterlife? If so, then it was absolutely gorgeous. He just hoped that he wouldn’t be bound to such an infirm body for the presumed eternity he would spend here.

  His illusions of this being a beautiful afterlife were shattered as he looked up from the lilies and saw his entire family being lowered from the sky. They were wrapped in smooth vines that restricted their movements, struggling uselessly against what was happening to them. They were arranged in a half circle around him, with Akane forming the center that faced him directly.

  “What… what is happening?” he asked, coughing as his accelerating heartbeat and his panicked, flat breathing tangibly shortened his remaining time among the living.

  The beautiful singing stopped, and the same voice spoke into his ear.

  “You’re dying, Toshirou. But as you said yourself, as long as this child remembers you… you’re not truly dead. Clinging to life is painful, isn’t it?”

  Long, spindly fingers with claw-like red nails caressed his cheek while he could do nothing but stare at his family. They called for him in desperation, shouts of ‘Father!’ or ‘Grandfather!’ intermingling and forming a chorus of dread.

  “Ah, my manners!” the voice chuckled and the monster to which it belonged stepped into his field of view. It was a woman who looked like her entire body and even her clothes were made out of leaves. Black sclera with tiny red irises gave her stare a dread-inducing quality.

  She opened her arms wide and spun in a circle once so the assembled family could see her.

  “I am Lethe! I preside over this domain, where I take and devour memories of those who catch my eye.”

  She pointed at Toshirou who tried to cling to life for as long as he could, now.

  “I will help you to truly die and leave this world behind. By making little Akane here forget about you.”

  “NO! I don’t want to forget grandpa!” the young girl shouted in desperation. Lethe turned towards her and caressed her cheek.

  “Aaah, how she thrashes and cries! Too bad that I don’t want to leave evidence of our interaction behind to achieve the best effect, or I would have used the thorned vines. It would have been a delight to watch her squeeze every last drop of blood out of her body, all on her own.”

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  He tried to prop himself up, to do something – anything – to help his granddaughter, but his frail body gave out, having him fall back on his pillow.

  He needed to take deep breaths already to stop himself from passing out.

  “Oh, how will this look to the rest of the family?!” she asked with a giggle as she turned around to face the others who were dangling in her trap.

  “Dear little Akane, the darling Akane! The favorite by far, showered in gifts and kisses and hugs, way more than her sister or her cousins. And the second her grandfather passes on she acts like he never existed.”

  She looked around the gathered family and cackled.

  “A true test of your familial bonds, don’t you think?”

  He was now crying in his final moments, weakly raising an arm towards the strange woman. Despite her claims being so outlandish, everyone around her instinctively knew that she could make her words reality.

  “Please… please don’t. Have a heart, please. Don’t inflict even more grief on my family. Do with me what you must but leave them out of it. Please!”

  The woman ceased her harassment of Akane for the moment, turning towards him and stepping closer again.

  “There is nothing that will convince me to deprive myself of a meal, Toshirou.” She almost whispered.

  “However!”

  The creature stopped in front of his bed and produced a long knife.

  “Spilling your blood to water my lovely plants is the key to giving up all memories a person holds of you. I have a proposition.”

  She leaned in, and her smile grew way too large and creepy.

  “Kill yourself, Toshirou. Spill all the blood in your veins and I will eat everyone’s memories of you. Your poor darling Akane will not be singled out and ostracized for her perceived indifference.”

  She put the knife into his trembling hand and closed it around the handle, guiding it to his jugular vein.

  “Just a quick cut… you are dying anyway, aren’t you?” she whispered as she let go of his hand.

  He hyperventilated, and his vision already faded at the edges. A burning sensation spread throughout his veins as he brought all his remaining strength together for one final push…

  Lethe was rather amused. The knife stuck out of her chest – the blade even pierced through the skin of her back.

  Toshirou looked at her with rage in his eyes, even as life started to fade from them. He was still in there, for just a moment longer.

  Time to send him off with despair in his soul.

  Lethe put her fingers on her sternum, and they sunk into her chest, rendered malleable by her control over her domain. She pulled them apart, opening her chest cavity to show the dying man how useless his little act of rebellion was.

  “I knew you would do this.”

  The heart in her chest was blackened and motionless. The knife penetrated it, right next to a much larger hole. No blood was flowing from either of the openings.

  “You can’t kill me like this.” She showed him her sharp teeth as she smiled, leaning closer and licking his cheek.

  “Go now, to the other side, you foolish man. Maybe Akane will join you if being ostracized by her family proves too much to bear. Too bad she won’t remember you when she does… and it will all be your fault.”

  If the man still drew breath, he would surely scream at her. But in his current state he simply slumped back onto the bed without a sound, his face contorted in horror. Lethe closed his eyes and adjusted his facial expression to a peaceful one. It wouldn’t do if the family suspected foul play.

  She pricked his finger while there was still liquid blood inside him. A single drop fell down on her lovely lilies and dyed the entire field red. A ritual she had repeated unfathomable amounts of times.

  Akane behind her squirmed and let out pained whimpers as a golden glow broke through her chest and materialized as a fruit containing all the memories of her dearest grandfather – the rest of the family wept and shouted words of love for Akane, useless things like ‘We won’t ever abandon you, even if you forget!’.

  We’ll see about that.

  Lethe wasted no time snatching Akane’s fruit and biting into it. It was sweet, and just the right amounts of sour – the certainty of her grandfather’s death before she graduated high school permeated most of the more recent memories.

  As always, as she almost finished, she placed the last bite in Akane’s mouth and made her chew it. Lost memories would return as dreams that the victim forgets about the next morning. Insult to injury, as the humans say.

  After her work was done, she propped up the unconscious Akane, wiping her tears.

  “Now, dearest family! It is time that you all forget what has transpired here!” she announced with a booming voice, raising a hand in the air and snapping her fingers.

  ***

  The family returned to the real world, together with the peaceful looking corpse of Toshirou. None of them remembered any of the past minutes – for them it was like the old man drifted into eternal sleep right after speaking to Akane.

  Lethe leaned against the wall in the corridor, right next to the door. She could hear the sobbing as it dawned on the family that Toshirou had truly passed on.

  Any minute now.

  “Mom… who is this?” Akane’s voice communicated her earnest confusion – she didn’t know why she was here and who was being mourned by all her family.

  Lethe pushed herself off the wall and headed for the hospice’s exit, letting the angry, mournful shouting serenade her on the way out as Akane’s life as the black sheep of her family began. In her hand she held a single lily, which played the girl’s sweet memories of her grandfather over and over, destined to be planted in Lethe’s Garden.

  ***

  Memories were such fragile things among humans. While Lethe needed blood to erase someone’s entire existence from their acquaintances’ heads, lesser memories only needed a little tug on invisible strings.

  For Lethe’s eyes, all humans have such strings attached to them. Once she touched them, she could see whatever memories they belonged to and if she gave them a little tug, they were gone.

  For being so fragile, a lot of these memories held things critically together.

  She walked past a man who kept a mental note about his daily medication. How terribly irresponsible, since this mental note was now gone and he hadn’t set an alarm on his phone for it, either. Transplant rejection is no joke, as he would soon find out.

  As she walked past a young couple, she plucked the maiden’s name from the man’s mind. While walking away, she could hear him struggle to address his girlfriend – resulting in a fight breaking out.

  The location of one’s keys, an approaching birthday of a friend, the material for today’s test, keycodes for the office, passwords for banking – small inconveniences mingled with more threatening situations, all due to memories being plucked from the citizens.

  Every time a memory was plucked, another lily grew in Lethe’s hands and before long she held a bouquet in her hands, crowned by Akane’s gentle memories of her grandfather.

  Lethe was feasting on the city, but her hunger was never sated.