The fluorescent lights overhead hum in a lazy, unsettling rhythm as I slide into my cubicle. The pale gray light of a monsoon-drenched morning squeezes through the tinted glass of the Office of Public Memory's Indra-17 Archive, casting ghostly patterns on the checkered floor below. Every breath tastes of cool, damp air and fear. Rainwater sluices off the steps outside and drips softly into the courtyard; even the distant thunder seems to echo the ache in my chest. My shoes squeak as I step onto the tile, slick with condensation. It's 9:47 AM. Already I feel the day straining at its edges.
My swipe card on the desk buzzes green: Beta‑Tier, Indra-17 Sector. A reminder of caste and station that barely matters here. Inside these walls, memory is the only currency. I cradle a chipped porcelain mug of bitter, medicine-strong tea in both hands. Each sip brings that burnt tang – metallic, acrid – into my mouth. I try to pretend it's sweet masala chai from my mother's kitchen, but it's just black grit and pain. Closing my eyes, I almost taste cinnamon and cardamom… until the reality of the brew snaps back. My shoulders sag from exhaustion. My back is stiff from standing at a console all night. I rub the base of my neck, murmuring the old prayers I barely believe in. Ganapati Bappa Morya, I whisper as if reciting a spell, but the Ganesha figurine on my desk offers only porcelain silence.
All around me, other archivists sit at identical consoles, heads bowed in concentration. Some tug at cheap scarves around their necks; others rub tired eyes. Nobody speaks. The silence is so complete that even our footsteps echo along the hall. No one asks how I'm doing. We all know better than to break the quiet — not today. It's almost comforting, this hush… almost terrifying.
On my desk, a stack of fresh memory modules sits ready. Eight new disks, each labeled with a name and date: strangers' lives locked in silvery plastic. They feel like time bombs. Any one of them could detonate something in me. I take a shaky breath. Carefully, I peel the seal off the first disk and slide it into the intake slot. A blue light springs on, and a low whir of the machine begins.
There is no going back now.
The moment the scanner hums to life, the world around me fades away. For the next few seconds I am not in Indra-17 Sector at all, but inside someone else's memory. Images cascade behind my closed eyes. White sugar cubes dissolving in a black cup of coffee. Water dripping into a canal. A laugh — a little boy's laugh — ringing high and pure. I see the boy standing knee-deep in a lotus pond, flinging stones. In his hands is a bright yellow sari, caught on the wind like a kite tail. The sari whips through the sky as the boy chases it, giggling. For an instant, I feel the warm mud at my ankles, the splash of the water over my skin. The boy's grin is so wide and joyful it sears into my memory. My chest tightens. Every breath feels too large in my lungs.
Then the scene splits and shatters. The hologram display blinks a confirmation: the memory is complete and sealed. "Village Pond – 2086," it reads. I stare at it dumbly. The digital clock on the wall flips from 9:47 to 10:01. I blink. Now it reads 10:23. Twenty-two minutes have vanished. I did not spend twenty-two minutes here.
No, that can't be right.
My breath catches in my throat. I wipe sweat from my forehead with a trembling hand. What the hell just happened? I think, but not out loud. My fingers curl into the edge of the desk. This was supposed to be routine. Always routine. Every day I tell myself: these memories are not mine. But a moment ago… I was that child in the pond. I felt his laughter. Something is so wrong.
I reach for the chipped Ganesha figurine. The little lord of beginnings is half-painted, half-broken; he stares back at me with empty eyes. "Ganapati Bappa," I murmur, an instinctive prayer against the abyss. The silence around me swallows the words. Maybe it is all in my head. Maybe I am just tired. But deep down I know: the smallest glitch has happened, and I saw her. I saw my mother's face on that grainy clip. I shudder.
Forcing myself to steady, I tear open the next disk's packaging. The label reads Family Reunion – 2078. Supposedly a simple memory of a picnic lunch. In the corner of my mind, a distant echo of what I just saw continues. But I press it aside, sliding the disk into the slot. The machine's whir resumes.
A grandmother stands by a stove, patting dough between wrinkled hands. The air smells of cardamom and wood smoke. She hums a Kannada lullaby softly. A small hand peeks from behind a worn doorway — the same boy in yellow, I realize, clutching a bat. He's watching the grandmother with wide eyes. Suddenly, the scene blurs.
The grandmother's hands transform into my hands. The countertop is now my mother's kitchen table. I am squeezing flour and water, my own reflection in the glass: younger me. The lullaby warps to a slower pitch, as if drowning. My mind fractures at the edges.
"Stop," I hiss through clenched teeth, ripping the helmet away. My chair rolls back as I jerk upright. Heart pounding, I can't bear to look at the screen. In the gap between heartbeats, I see two images strobing: on one side, that boy from the pond, drenched and laughing; on the other, a girl in green braids, looking up at me, mother's song on her lips. They flicker together, then vanish as the monitor goes gray.
My mouth is dry. I stare into the empty corridor outside the glass wall. The archives should be empty at this hour — it's well past lunch. But the faint click of others leaving still reaches me, like distant gunfire. I should be recording an anomaly report. Instead, I swallow my panic.
A gentle click behind me. The ventilation grates on the ceiling rattle, and a breath of stale air drifts down. For an instant I could swear I hear the lullaby again. I whip around, but see only fluorescent lights and the still stacks of disks on a worktable behind me. This place is quiet. Too quiet.
In my earlobe, a faint alarm chirps: Unauthorized memory access. I blink — is the compliance AI reacting to me? No, I must have triggered it by yanking the helmet off. The alarm is probably just for me. I step back.
My hands feel weak. I close my eyes and take a slow breath. When I open them, the room has gone completely dark — all the workstations have powered down. The big overhead lamp, usually left on until everyone leaves, has gone off too. The last of the other archivists stand in line by the elevator, murmuring their goodnights. None look at me. My face must be a mask of shock.
I scrub my hands over my face. How do I stay? Everything in me screams to run out the door. I gather the disks in the tray, but my fingers shake so badly I nearly drop it. The screens around me are black rectangles; the silence is like a tomb.
I force myself to sit back down. The final disk is in my hand: Birthday Song – 2068. It's nothing special, a child's lullaby memory. I shouldn't even have it here yet. But my other disks are done. So I gingerly put on the helmet one last time.
The scanner hums. The lullaby begins — but it's the wrong lullaby. Not the simple tune from the label. It's my sister's lullaby, the one I grew up with. My eyes sting, and I fight back tears. The words warp slow, syllables stretching out like taffy. The lullaby slows to a crawl… and I hear my name humming in it.
I throw the helmet. It clatters to the floor. My breathing rattles; I cannot focus. I feel puddles of cold sweat on my arms. The hatch where these memories come from must be leaking. I set the disk down on the reader, hoping it completes, because I need something ordinary.
The monitors are all off, nothing left for me to archive. I stare at the LED clock on the wall of my cube — it's 3:37 PM now, but it feels like midnight. My legs tremble as I stand. I didn't eat lunch. My blood sugar is probably low. I rub my arms, trying to shake out the adrenaline.
The man who always hums quietly and taps his keyboard stands up to leave. He yawns big and slaps me on the shoulder absentmindedly. "Gotta get out of here," he grumbles. I force a weak smile and nod. My voice is gone; I can't talk. He shuffles away, the last of the night shift.
I plug my card into the logout terminal and shut down my console. Everything on-screen goes dark. The disks sit sealed and forgotten, waiting to be filed by someone else in the morning. I should pack up, clock out. But deep down I hesitate. If any boss notices I'm gone for hours with no report, what excuse will I give? Perhaps none. The fear that I've already lost my sanity fights with the instinct to vanish.
Either way, I need to leave.
My key ring scrapes the metal stairwell handle. I step outside the archive cubicle. The corridor lights flicker off one by one as I pass. The scent of stale coffee and ozone trails behind me. Just before the doors slide open, I spare one last glance back at the empty lab.
Behind the tinted glass, screens flicker into dark nothingness. In their black rectangles, for a fleeting moment, I think I see faces — not the flat gray of shutdown monitors, but the glint of eyes. Was it really there? I blink and it's gone. My stomach flips.
A hiss as the doors part, sucking in the rainy street air. I tighten my hood and step out. The stairwell's metal grates thrum with the rain. The sidewalks outside are rivers. I splash through puddles toward the main entrance.
Half the city rushes home. Cars splash past me, horns muted by the downpour. Yellow streetlamps and neon signs blur through sheets of rain. Somewhere, a radio plays indistinct music. Everything is normal — wet, heavy, noisy normal. And yet… I feel as if I've left one world and entered another.
They say walls have ears. This building… it must have every nerve ending tuned to life. I pull my jacket closer, shivering despite the heat. The moment I'm outside, echoes of those memories follow me. In the rumble of thunder I hear the little boy's laughter. In the rush of water I swear someone calls "Anaya…" from the shadows.
A crackling noise comes from the wall next to the closed archive doors. I press my ear against the cold metal. Is it the speaker system? A lullaby note warbles out — the same tone I just heard in my head — then another: "Ana…" My heart lurches. I step back, water dripping from my coat.
Under the next streetlamp, a stray cat arches and hisses, scrambling away. Or was that a voice behind me? I spin around, half-hoping for someone to explain it all. But the park is deserted except for puddles and swirling leaves. Nothing but my own soaked breath.
A chilling thought: what if it was someone? I stifle a laugh at myself. I'm scared… but I'm alone. Rationally, there should be an explanation. Stress, exhaustion, data flooding from who-knows-where. My friends would say I'm cracking up.
Yet nothing feels real. When I first walked into Indra-17 this morning, I was sure I would just log routine files. Now I'm questioning every second of it. They say memory is sediment, not scripture. The archivist mantra echoes in my head. Perhaps some of this sediment has begun to crumble.
I keep moving. I have to get out of this delusion. I cross the street, my boots splashing in the gutter. The main roads are choked with traffic, but I head down a quiet lane. The night has swallowed most people; I just see one figure far ahead under an awning, head bent against the storm.
Suddenly that figure turns, and for one breath I freeze. In the dim light I think I recognize him — a colleague who left for the nightshift the same time as me. But then he isn't. He's just another drenched silhouette, face swaying in the wind. I blink and he disappears into a cafe.
What am I doing? I shake off the thought. Eyes ahead. The pavement ends in a flooded intersection. I step cautiously. The water is chest-high and foul-smelling in places. A screeching fish leaps beside me in surprise. I want to yell at it — why won't anything stop? — but no sound comes out.
My body is numb. I stand in the downpour, soaked through. And then — gentle amidst the chaos — I hear it again. "Tomorrow…"
It comes on the wind, on the screech of a horn, on the drip of gutter water. Not once, but several times in pieces: a child's pleading cry, an old woman's forgiveness chant, a man's lullaby hum. They all swirl together, a tangled chorus of one word I still can't believe.
No. It can't be.
I clutch my head. The voices crash in on me — half-remembered fragments of other people's days. They are in the walls, in the air, in me. I stumble, almost falling. The building's facade to my back seems to breathe with them. Each glass pane fogs out with whispered "Tomorrow…" again and again.
"T-Tomorrow," I choke out, spinning in place, eyes wild. "Who… who's there?"
Only thunder answers. My question splashes into the rain.
I feel insane. And yet… I heard it. Clear as day.
Nobody is around to see me cry. My tears mix with rain as I sink to the curb. Sirens wail in the distance. A car backfires. The city is alive — and I'm losing it.
All at once I laugh and sob, shaken. Staring up at the dark sky, drenched, I whisper to the night: "Tomorrow…."
A final flash of lightning silhouettes my face. The rain softens. The voices fade. Tomorrow – that word is mine again, just mine.
Finally, I manage to stand. I step off the curb, limp toward the few remaining lights of the night. Each step feels like I'm leaving a part of myself behind, out there in Indra-17. My legs carry me home, but my mind still staggers on those wet streets.
Tomorrow. I tell myself that word like a lifeline as I vanish into the storm. The city's hush swallows the echo.
Tomorrow…Tomorrow…