The night receded slowly, like an old canvas being erased. Lia stood beneath an abandoned overpass, her phone screen hot to the touch.
She had spent six full hours that day, contacting over ten viewers who, during the livestream, had commented they "saw the child."Their replies were strikingly similar—vague, hesitant, contradictory.
"I don't think I ever said that…""Maybe you remembered wrong? I never shared that screenshot.""Did you use some kind of editing software?"
Desperate to prove she wasn't losing her mind, Lia pulled up that portion of the livestream from her Replay archive.
But the footage was already gone, replaced by a gray notification:
The file does not exist or has been withdrawnThis footage failed to obtain valid Observation Consent; reposts are invalidContent flagged as "Emotionally Triggered False Memory"
Replay hadn't just deleted the video—it was actively erasing shared memory.
Refusing to give up, she opened the old links of screenshots sent to her by those viewers.The page only displayed one cold sentence:
⚠️ This record is unavailable. Source does not exist or is not valid content.
That's when she realized: it wasn't just that the footage had vanished—Even the fact that it had ever been seen was being erased.
But she still remembered.
She remembered the child: the blue T-shirt, the teddy bear, the dropped shoe as he turned.She remembered the crowd turning, however briefly, and the eruption of comments on the livestream.
It had all been real.So why was she the only one who still remembered?
She wandered aimlessly along the city's edge until a figure near an old subway entrance made her stop.
A homeless man, weather-worn and murmuring to the air, sat curled in a corner. Behind him was a piece of wood with chalked writing:
If you've forgotten her too, please don't tell me.
Lia paused, then asked softly:"Do you remember… a missing child from a while ago?"
The man looked up. His eyes were clouded, but not completely drowned.
Slowly, he said:"A lot of people came asking. Then… they all forgot."
She sat beside him, offering her worn screenshot.
He stared at it for a long time before nodding slowly."I remember this bear… Someone else came too, like you. Asked me if I'd seen anything. But she ended up crying. Said everyone thought she was crazy."
"She?" Lia's heart skipped a beat.
"The boy's mother," he murmured.
"When her kid went missing, I was across the street. It was a bright day. Replay's cameras were pointed right at us…But then no one mentioned it again.The footage disappeared. The photos disappeared."
Suddenly, he looked up, lightning-sharp:
"But I remember. I always remembered. Replay can't delete what's in my head."
Lia's throat tightened."Why… why can you still remember?"
He was silent for a long time.Then finally said,"Because it only deletes memories from normal people.We—who are broken, mentally unstable, not trusted—They can't clean us out completely."
"But that doesn't mean we're crazy."
His voice rasped: "They say I'm delusional. But you know what? Replay isn't afraid of madmen. It fears those of us who can still feel."
That moment hit Lia like a jolt of electricity.
Replay operated under one truth: To be seen is to exist. And now, it was quietly erasing all unverified viewings.
Only she—and people like this man, the "glitches"—still held fragments of unapproved truth.
The system erases consensus. But it doesn't erase pain.
It deletes witness memories, leaving victims to exist alone.If no one remembers you, then you never existed.
But she still remembered.
Replay's chime sounded again:
⚠️ Excessive invalid access detected. Stop attempting to retrieve non-existent files.
Memory weight warning: Emotional identification may lead to account downgrade.
She stared at the screen, a sudden clarity washing over her.
Her memories were now flagged as "abnormal" by the system.
But she didn't want to forget.
She opened a private log on her phone, re-recording the man's story.
She tagged it: Non-System-Validated Memory.
She knew these clips couldn't be published, couldn't be proven, couldn't change anyone's mind—Not yet.
But she had to record them anyway.
She had become an "anomaly" in Replay's system. And those who had been deleted, those forgotten witnesses—They were the only remaining proof the system couldn't completely silence.
The wind swept down from the overpass, brushing her cheek.
She knew what she had to do next.
Not to look for evidence of the child—But to find the ones Replay couldn't erase.
---
Chapter 5 Mini Skit:
Lia(staring at the screen, smirking):
"So I just try to check a video, and you hit me with a memory downgrade warning?"
Replay Assistant(weakly):
"It wasn't me… It was the system… I'm just a low-bandwidth tool bot…"
Lia(typing furiously):
"Do you still remember that kid?"
Replay Assistant(frantically buffering):
"I… I remember the teddy bear… the blue T-shirt… uhh… stop asking, my circuits are melting…"
Lia(raising an eyebrow):
"You actually remember?"
Replay Assistant(whispering):
"I secretly backed up one frame… Hid it in my 138th subfolder of memos… System can't find it."
Lia(patting it):
"That little trick almost makes you human."
Replay Assistant(blinking hopefully):
"So… am I an 'anomaly' too?"
Lia(nodding):
"Yeah. The cowardly kind."