Gemotions

The chipped mug warmed Elias’s hands, but the chill inside him remained. He stared at Liam, his childhood friend, across the cluttered table of the coffee shop. Liam was recounting the time they’d snuck into the abandoned factory as kids, the same story they'd told countless times. But something felt…off.

Liam chuckled, gesturing wildly. “Remember how we thought the shadows were ghosts? I swear, I almost wet myself.” He paused, looking fondly back at the memory. The story was so clear in his eyes, so vivid, and so utterly unlike Elias's own recollection.

Elias took a long sip, the coffee suddenly bitter. He recalled the factory as a vast, echoing space, not the cramped, dusty hellhole Liam described. He recalled a specific, unsettling feeling of being watched, something Liam breezily glossed over. The memory swam in his mind, and he felt a knot tightening in his stomach.

"You remember the green paint, right?" Liam asked, leaning forward with a conspiratorial grin.

Elias swallowed, a dryness coating his mouth. "Green paint?" he managed, his voice barely a whisper. He didn’t remember any green paint.