Julian gasped, panting in the silence.

  The pain in his head faded—slowly—but it left behind something colder than pain.

  A blank space.

  The first ten years of his childhood—gone.

  And with them, the root. The spark. The first thrill that had started it all.

  He tried to reach for it—tried to trace the moment where it began.

  But the instant his mind brushed against that empty space, the headache flared again—sharp, violent.

  He clutched his head, groaning, his vision blurring from the pressure.

  Miles away, in his parents’ quiet home, without a sound, the old folded photo album lying forgotten in a drawer began to change.

  One by one, the pages began to fade—until nothing remained but blank white rectangles.

  The space where Julian once smiled at birthdays, hugged his parents, or held up trophies—gone.

  Erased like it never happened.

  Julian’s face twitched.

  His breath came in sharp pulls.

  But not from sorrow—he had sacrificed that for a wish.

  Only the dull, pounding pain of his missing finger grounded him, pulling him away from his thoughts.

  He sat down slowly, his hand still wrapped in a towel soaked with blood, his eyes distant.

  And still—no grief.

  Just emptiness.

  And beneath it, a tremble of excitement.

  Because now—after all the price he paid as sacrifice—he was no longer tied to the biker's death.

  No longer a suspect. No longer hunted.

  As if confirming Julian’s thoughts, the wish he made began to take full effect.

  The invisible waves of violet wisp that had spread across the earth—faded.

  And with them, at first, people’s memories of Julian’s connection to the biker’s death disappeared.

  The police car screeched to a stop—a sharp, echoing brake—exactly 100 meters from Julian’s house.

  Inside, the lead officer frowned. He remembered the case—the biker’s death, the investigation. But not why he was here.

  Confused, he turned to the driver beside him. “Why are we here?”

  The driver blinked—the same blank confusion settling in his eyes.

  He didn’t know either.

  A silent beat passed.

  Then they both shook their heads—as if waking from a dream—and turned the car around.

  The sirens faded into the distance, swallowed by the city’s hum.

  Julian stood still, listening.

  His breath caught in his chest—then slowly released.

  He didn’t know exactly how they forgot, but he knew what it meant.

  The wish had worked.

  It was fulfilled.

  But the world wasn’t done changing yet.

  It was only beginning.

  The TV—and every smart device still playing the news about Julian’s connection to the biker’s death—glitched.

  All across the world, screens distorted.

  A flicker.

  A blur.

  A ripple in the signal.

  When the broadcast returned, Julian’s photo—once displayed beside the biker’s corpse—was gone.

  Only the picture of the biker’s corpse remained on-screen.

  The news anchor paused.

  For a moment, he couldn’t remember what he was about to say.

  It was the first time in his career that the words simply vanished.

  He shook the thought off and continued reading. “The biker’s death has been confirmed as an accident.

  No further evidence was found.

  Police are continuing the investigation from different angles.”

  The anchor, the people watching the broadcast, and the police who had remembered Julian’s name—their memories had been rewritten.

  Altered without them ever realizing it.

  No mention of Julian.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  No trace.

  Like Julian had never murdered the biker.

  Like he had never taken anything from him in the first place.

  Meanwhile, in an investigation office, an officer typed up the recent case report on the biker’s death.

  His fingers moved quickly—until suddenly, the page he’d been working on was blank.

  Everything he had typed—erased.

  He blinked. Brushed his eyes.

  Refreshed the page.

  Still empty.

  He frowned, shook the strange feeling from his head, and began typing again.

  But this time, he didn’t remember the suspect. He didn’t remember Julian.

  This time he wrote: Cause of death: accident.

  No evidence found for other angles. Investigation: in progress.

  At the same time,

  on the other side of the office, an old notebook sat on a cluttered desk.

  It belonged to the officer who had first suspected Julian’s connection to the biker.

  Inside, a page that once held shaky notes—handwritten suspicions, the phone model, a name—faded.

  The ink vanished.

  The words disappeared line by line, like they were being erased by time itself.

  When the officer flipped back through it later, he paused at the blank space. But he didn’t remember writing anything there.

  So he turned the page and kept going.

  Meanwhile, at the iPhone company that had manufactured the iPhone 25 Pro, a deeper erasure took place.

  The IMEI number tied to the phone Julian now owned was wiped—digitally and physically.

  Manufacturing logs.

  Shipment records.

  Gone.

  Even the sales record that showed the biker had purchased that phone—vanished without alerting a single system.

  No error.

  No audit trail.

  As if the phone had never been made. Never sold. Never touched by human hands.

  Now, there was nothing in the world that remembered the biker’s death had ever been connected to Julian.

  Nothing—except Julian himself.

  He remembered it all.

  Everything—except the part of his childhood he had sacrificed.

  Unknown to the process that let him escape the hands of the police, Julian checked every news channel.

  Checked his phone.

  No mention of his name.

  As he confirmed he had completely escaped being the suspect in the biker's death case, he placed his phone on the corner of the desk—the spot with the least bloodstains.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled, slightly calming his nerves, though the frown on his face stayed—tight from pain.

  The metallic smell of blood, mixed with sweat and the sour stink of beer, still lingered in the air.

  It drifted with the cooling breeze from the window, as if caressing him.

  His body shivered instinctively.

  His sweat had dried—sticky, but carrying that faint, cooling after-effect.

  His gaze dropped to his left hand, still wrapped in the blood-soaked towel.

  The bleeding had stopped, but the wound still pulsed beneath the towel.

  Julian slowly peeled the towel away.

  It stuck—threads glued to the stump where his middle finger had once been, now covered in semi-dried blood.

  He winced.

  He didn’t know what to do. Should he go to the hospital?

  Or wash it and bandage it himself?

  He had used a kitchen knife—not sterilized.

  There was no guarantee it was safe.

  No guarantee it wouldn’t get worse.

  No—he couldn’t just bandage it and leave it like that.

  He had to go to the hospital.

  But what would he say to the doctors?

  What excuse could cover this?

  Then an idea came.

  Still wincing, he stripped off his shirt—soaked with sweat and blood.

  The fabric grazed the wound, and he hissed through his teeth.

  He gently washed the dried blood from his hand—everywhere except the stump.

  He didn’t have the confidence to touch it.

  He was afraid that if he washed the wound, the blood might start flowing again.

  Instead, he let it be.

  Dried the rest of his hand with a piece of cloth—just a regular one from the shelf.

  Then he took out the first aid kit that had come with the bike when he bought it.

  It had been sitting there so long, the box was covered in dust.

  There was no antiseptic powder. Nothing for real wounds.

  Just a white bandage.

  Using his right hand, he began to wrap the bandage around the stump. His fingers trembled.

  The moment the cloth touched the raw wound, a burning pain shot up his arm, electrifying his brain.

  He gritted his teeth. Distracted his thoughts.

  And kept going.

  When the bandaging was done, he grabbed his iPhone and booked a cab to the hospital.

  He couldn’t ride his bike—not with a missing middle finger, and not with a wound that would bleed even under light pressure.

  He felt dizzy—not badly, but enough to know the blood loss had drained him.

  He dressed himself carefully, trying not to disturb the fresh bandage.

  Then he locked his door, stepped outside, and waited for the cab.

  The sunlight pressed against his eyes, and made the dizziness worse.

  Five minutes later, a car arrived in front of Julian’s house.

  Julian walked toward the cab.

  The driver, still seated, caught the sour smell through the open window.

  His nose twitched.

  He stared at Julian for a second, his gaze briefly dropping to the fresh bandage on Julian’s hand.

  But he didn’t ask about it.

  “OTP?” he said.

  “7302,” Julian replied.

  The driver nodded.

  Julian opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  He leaned back and said, “Can you turn on the AC? I feel sweaty.”

  The driver didn’t think much of it. He nodded, switched on the AC, and rolled the windows shut.

  The car pulled away, Julian’s house fading into the rearview mirror.

  The chill air inside the car eased the edge of the pain. But the cold also made him sleepy.

  Exhaustion weighed down his eyelids.

  There was a sour smell in the car—familiar to Julian. So he didn’t mind it.

  But the driver felt it—scraping through his nose, making his breath feel heavy and slow.

  Still, he said nothing.

  All customers were different.

  And Julian had already paid online.

  He just accepted it, and followed the map, heading toward the hospital.

  The cab reached the hospital.

  The driver pulled into the parking lot, put the car in park, and waited for the door to open—hoping he could finally breathe normally.

  But no sound came.

  No door click.

  Only a soft snore.

  Suspicious, he turned around—and saw Julian asleep, head tilted back, saliva dripping onto the seat cover.

  His bandaged hand rested stiffly in his lap, separate, untouched.

  The driver felt a headache forming.

  First the smell.

  Now the snoring and the drool.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “Sir? Sir, we’ve reached the hospital. Please wake up—I’ve got my next booking to attend.”

  The sound drifted into Julian’s ears—twisting into his dream.

  He jolted half-awake, screaming, “No, no!” as if torn from a nightmare.

  His arm flailed, and the bandaged hand slammed into the front seat.

  “Ahh!”

  He shouted—fully awake now, grimacing from the pain.

  He looked around, disoriented.

  Then he saw the driver staring at him—and Julian could feel what kind of gaze it was.

  The driver was looking at him like he was some kind of fool.

  Julian just nodded, opened the door, and stepped out.

  The sunlight and warmth hit him like a slow wave—shaking off the chill of the cab and waking him fully.

  Julian had learned something in the moments between hesitation and pain—between gripping the knife and cutting his own finger.

  How to control the third wish.

  The one that brought a surge of excitement and thrill into every moment of life.

  Even sunlight could thrill him, if he let it.

  But first—he had to get the wound treated.

  Then he could enjoy the thrill again.

  Behind him, the driver didn’t wait.

  He drove off quickly—like he was escaping a bad dream of his own.

  Julian took a deep breath and walked forward, entering the long hallway of the hospital.

  The sterile scent of antiseptic clashed with the sour smell still clinging to him.

  There were only three patients inside.

  No crowd.

  Too quiet.

  He walked to the reception desk, filled out a form, and received a token.

  Token 9.

  He glanced at it, then held it loosely in his hand.

  He didn’t care what number it was.

  He just wanted the wound bandaged, no infection, no questions.

  Then go home. Lay on his bed. Sleep.

  He felt exhausted—especially under the weight of the afternoon heat.

  He sat down in the waiting area, settling into one of the cold plastic chairs.

  On the wall, a TV was broadcasting the news.

  The anchor’s voice was calm: “Tomorrow, a heavy storm is expected. Residents are advised to remain indoors.”

  Julian stared at the screen, frowning.

  Outside, the sunlight was frying the world. The heat shimmered off the sidewalk.

  How could there be a storm tomorrow?

  But before the thought could settle, his number was called.

  “Token 9,” the receptionist said.