11. Memory

The whole world was something like a watercolor painting. The colors, pastel, faded out at the edges, and the lines were less distinguishable than in reality. The figure was sitting on a rock near a river that only seemed to flow. It was still, yet it moved. That was how the world worked, but the whole world seemed only like ten cubic feet of a scene by a river with grass and flowers. Uncertain, the girl stepped up to the boy by the river, whose feet were dangling in. Though he shared the ethereal quality of the scene, he looked… somewhat more solid.

"Who are you?" She asked. She didn't dare look down at herself.

The boy looked up, slightly surprised, but also like he recognized her. She didn't recognize him at all. He was kind of tannish, with chocolate-brown hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing a faded green t-shirt—although everything was faded—and brown shorts. No shoes covered his feet, though it was hard to tell because his feet vanished into the river, covered by blue. It was like a painting, indeed.

"You don't remember me?" He asked, his voice slightly hopeful, dropped, "Of course you don't"

"Should I?"

"I would hope so. We were best friends."

"I don't…" It would have been rude for her to say 'I don't remember you at all.' Instead, she rephrased, "Why would I forget a best friend?"

"Because they made you forget. Like everyone else forgot me."

"Who-?"

"The Council"

"…Who?"

"I made this world for you. I painted, before all that happened. I painted art for you because you said it was pretty" The mysterious boy smiled embarrassedly. "You liked my paintings… so I wanted you to be inside one. This was one of the first that I did… but it's gone in the real world now…" He sighed, "It never existed"

"What do you mean?"

"Memory's a strange thing…" He remarked, "We take it for granted, but without it we have no way of believing anything. Do you believe that I'm real? That this painting used to be real?"

"Well no, I don't even know who you are."

"I'm Caron."

"I don't know a Caron"

"You mean you don't remember me. So I ask again, do you think any of this is real?"

"I don't remember—"

"My point"

She stepped up to the water, and ran her hands through it. Though it felt cool like water, and ran over her hands like water, it looked like a painting. "What Council?" She asked again.

"The Council doesn't want you to remember them either. And it's better that you don't. Or…" Caron looked uneasy, pulled his feet out of the water. "Or they'll make everyone forget you ever existed, too."

"Why? Who are they?"

"…No one remembers."