The moon hung low over the city, swollen and silver, as if it were waiting. June leaned against the cold rail of her rooftop, her fingers curled tightly around the edge like she was afraid the sky might swallow her whole.

She hated this day.

Every year on June 18th—her birthday—something strange happened. A flicker in time. A voice that didn’t belong. A sense that the world slipped sideways, just for a second. It was never loud, never obvious. But it was there. Like a secret only she was meant to carry.

She was eighteen today. Legally an adult. Yet, more than ever, she felt like a child staring at a sky that refused to give her answers.

Her aunt Meera called out from inside. “June? You’re up there again?”

“I’ll come down in a bit!” she replied, not taking her eyes off the moon.

“You’ll catch a cold!”

The rooftop had always been her sanctuary. After her parents died when she was nine, she moved in with her aunt in the sleepy suburbs. Since then, the rooftop became the only place that felt real. And the moon? It had become something more than a celestial body. It was... a witness. A keeper of secrets.

The clock tower down the street chimed midnight. Her breath caught.

One... two... three...

She clenched her jaw. “Not again,” she whispered.

Eleven... twelve.

The twelfth chime faded into silence. But not ordinary silence—this one had weight. Even the breeze stilled. The street below, usually humming with occasional rickshaws and chatter, seemed to vanish. June’s heart pounded.

And then, she heard it.

A whisper.

Not outside her. Inside.

> “She remembers.”

Her knees buckled, and she dropped to the rooftop floor. Hands pressed to her ears as if to block it out, but the voice wasn’t in her ears—it was in her bones.

A flash struck her mind. A pair of pale eyes. A crimson thread. A girl crying beneath the same full moon.

She gasped, crawling backward until her back hit the rooftop wall. The vision vanished. The night resumed.

She blinked at the sky.

The moon, as still as ever, looked almost amused.

What just happened? Again?

Last year, she woke up with a deep scratch down her back, no explanation. The year before, she lost three hours of memory. Always on June 18th. Always under the full moon.

She stood up slowly, legs trembling, brushing dust off her pajama pants. The city below had resumed its normal rhythm. The breeze was back. A car honked in the distance.

June turned her gaze back to the moon. “What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

The moon didn’t answer.

But the air held something. A promise—or maybe a threat.

She stepped down from the rooftop, her body still trembling. Her aunt was waiting in the living room, flipping through a worn magazine.

“You okay?” Meera asked, not looking up.

June nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Had the dream again?”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

Meera finally looked up, frowning. “You know, if you keep talking like that, your friends will think you’re crazy.”

June offered a weak smile. “Good thing I don’t have many.”

She started for her room.

“Wait,” Meera said. “You got a letter.”

June stopped. “A letter?”

“No return address. Just your name.”

She took it from her aunt’s hand. The envelope was plain, but the paper inside was thick, textured. Handwritten.

> “Some things are better left forgotten, June. But not this. Come to Maple Town. It begins where it once ended.”

No signature.

Her blood ran cold.

Maple Town.

She hadn’t heard that name in almost nine years.

It was where her parents died.

---

June stared at the letter in her hands long after her aunt had gone to bed. The handwriting was unfamiliar—neat, careful, almost too perfect—but it made her hands shake all the same. “It begins where it once ended.” Maple Town.

She hadn’t been there since she was nine. The town had been blurred into the background of her life, tucked away like an old scar. Her parents had taken her there for a short vacation—and never made it out. June was found wandering alone in the forest, clothes torn, blood on her knees, eyes blank.

No one ever told her what really happened.

She pressed the letter to her chest and closed her eyes. The air around her felt tighter, charged like it had the night before a thunderstorm. She wasn’t imagining this. Something had been stirring her whole life—and now it was waking up.

The next morning, June packed quietly. Just enough clothes for a week. Her aunt noticed but didn’t say much until breakfast.

“You’re leaving?” Meera asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Just for a few days. I need... to clear my head.”

Meera looked unconvinced. “June, you’ve been quiet since your birthday. Again.”

“I need to go somewhere,” June said, voice low. “Alone.”

Meera tapped her coffee mug. “Where?”

June hesitated. “Maple Town.”

Her aunt dropped the mug. It shattered across the floor. Coffee pooled around their feet like an omen.

“You’re not serious.”

June looked her in the eye. “I am.”

“June,” Meera said, stepping over the mess. “That place is cursed. You know what happened there—don’t you remember?”

“No,” June whispered. “I don’t. That’s the problem.”

Her aunt’s face changed. Something behind her eyes faltered, then turned hard.

“I promised your mother I’d protect you,” Meera said. “And I’m telling you now—don’t go back there.”

But June had already made up her mind. The voice in her head, the letter, the flashes—none of it was going to stop unless she faced it. She had to go.

Two days later, she was on a dusty bus winding through hills and pine forests. Maple Town was still three hours away. She watched trees blur past the window, her fingers lightly tracing the shape of the moon pendant around her neck—a gift from her father when she turned seven.

As the sky dimmed, a boy slid into the empty seat beside her. He looked about her age, maybe a year older, wearing a faded gray hoodie and jeans, earbuds in, head tilted slightly toward her.

She caught a glimpse of his eyes—silver-gray, almost unnatural. Her breath caught.

“You okay?” he asked, pulling one earbud out.

June blinked. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“You heading to Maple?”

She nodded.

“First time?”

“No,” she said, unsure why she was even answering. “I used to live there. Kind of.”

He smiled faintly, but something about it unsettled her. It didn’t reach his eyes. Not even close.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He paused. “Call me River.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Unusual.”

“I get that a lot.”

River leaned back against the seat, watching her without watching her. Like he already knew who she was. Like he was waiting for something.

The bus jerked slightly. June’s fingers curled into her jacket sleeve. She felt watched—not just by River, but by the trees, the sky... even the moon.

River finally looked away, muttering, “Maple has a strange pull, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

He tilted his head. “You’ll see.”

Then he closed his eyes, and the conversation was over.

By the time they reached Maple Town, the sun had set. Fog rolled over the ground like it had been waiting for them to arrive. The town looked almost untouched by time—quiet streets, old streetlamps, and stone cottages with ivy creeping up the sides.

June stepped off the bus, the cold air clinging to her skin. Her heart thudded against her ribs.

She turned to look for River, but he was already gone.

---

The fog clung to her shoes as June walked down the empty street, suitcase wheels stuttering against uneven cobblestones. Maple Town felt like a dream—like a place preserved in memory, then left to rot gently in time. Familiar and wrong all at once.

The letter hadn’t given an address, only the name of the town. But something in her bones guided her. A quiet pull, a whisper under her skin.

She turned a corner and stopped.

A small inn stood at the edge of town. Moonshade Inn, the sign read in faded gold. Its windows were glowing faintly, curtains fluttering in the windless air. She didn't remember this place from before. But her feet moved toward it like they’d always known.

She entered the front room—a mixture of wood polish, lavender, and something older, like forgotten pages. A bell above the door jingled faintly.

Behind the counter sat a woman in her late forties, with short silver-streaked hair and sharp blue eyes. She looked up, and for a moment, her expression froze.

“You’re... June,” the woman said.

June blinked. “How do you know my name?”

“I run this inn. You stayed here once. A long time ago.”

June’s skin prickled. “I don’t remember.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” the woman murmured. “Your mother loved this place.”

The name tag read Leena. June tried to search her face for something familiar, but nothing clicked.

“I got a letter,” June said. “No name. Just... ‘Come to Maple Town.’ I don’t even know why I came, honestly.”

Leena hesitated, then reached under the desk and pulled out a brass key. “Room 3. It’s already prepared.”

June frowned. “Already?”

Leena smiled, but her lips trembled. “Let’s just say... I had a feeling.”

June climbed the creaky staircase, the key cool in her palm. Room 3 was at the end of the hall. She turned the key and stepped inside.

It was cozy. A bit old. Wooden floors, a velvet armchair, a small desk near the window. On the wall above the bed was a large oval mirror with a gilded frame. She stared at it.

The moonlight filtered in through sheer curtains, bathing the mirror in a strange, silver glow.

She dropped her bag and walked over to the mirror. Her reflection stared back, pale and exhausted. But as she leaned in closer, her breath caught in her throat.

Her reflection was smiling.

She wasn’t.

June stumbled back, heart thudding. The mirror image faded into normal, mirroring her fear now, her wide eyes.

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t just see that.”

She pressed her hand against the glass. Cold.

And then—words fogged across the mirror’s surface as if someone had exhaled from the other side.

> “You found me.”

June jerked her hand back. The words vanished.

She backed into the wall, unable to take her eyes off the mirror. Every instinct told her to run. But something deeper—something ancient—told her to stay.

The same whisper she heard on her birthday whispered now from deep within her: Remember.

Suddenly, the mirror’s surface shimmered like water. For the briefest moment, June saw a girl—herself, but not. Younger. Bleeding. Screaming silently behind the glass.

Then it vanished.

The room was still again.

June collapsed onto the bed, pulling her knees to her chest.

She didn’t sleep that night.

---