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Good Night
墨書 Inktalez
My head started to ache again. This pain always arrived in the stillness of the night, like a timed bomb, exploding precisely the moment I closed my experimental report. I rubbed my temples and dimmed the computer screen; the soft yellow light in the office gave me an inexplicable sense of comfort. The neuroscience lab was empty at this hour, just me and the monitors displaying brain scan images.
"Another late night, Anna?"
I looked up to see Professor Lin, the lab director, standing at the door, her white coat glowing faintly blue under the dim lights.
"I still have some data to organize," I replied with a smile, instinctively closing some windows on my screen. "I want the presentation on the memory restoration project to be as perfect as possible for tomorrow."
Professor Lin nodded without pressing further. "Don't overdo it. You know, sometimes the most important discoveries come from insights during rest," she said gently, then waved goodbye. "Don't stay out too late; Mark and Lily need you."
Hearing about my family made my heart tighten. I glanced at my phone, where a message from Mark read: "Dinner is ready. Lily wants to wait for you to eat together, but she's already asleep. You can make it up to her at breakfast. Love you."
Next to the message was a photo: our daughter Lily curled up on the sofa, clutching her favorite giraffe toy, peacefully asleep. I zoomed in on the picture and noticed a small scar on her right hand—left from when she fell off a slide at five years old. Seeing that familiar mark brought me an inexplicable comfort, as if confirming something important.
"Okay, I'll wrap things up," I said to Professor Lin, but she had already left.
As silence enveloped the office once more, that familiar sense of unease returned. It was an indescribable feeling, as if something important had slipped my mind or someone was watching my every move from the shadows. I looked around but saw nothing unusual; only the clock on the wall ticked away, reminding me it was already one in the morning.
Taking a deep breath, I refocused on my computer screen. In the center was a set of brain scan images showing activity patterns when recalling traumatic memories. Our research aimed to develop a technique that could safely access and repair traumatic memories rather than simply erase them. Traditional treatments often viewed traumatic memories as enemies to be eliminated, but my theory was based on a different premise: trauma is not a mistake to be erased but an experience to be reintegrated.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I inputted the latest experimental data into the system. The scan results for subject M-734 were particularly striking—under our therapeutic intervention, her traumatic memory patterns showed unprecedented plasticity. This could be our long-awaited breakthrough.
"If I can unlock this process," I murmured to myself, "we could help millions suffering from trauma..."
Suddenly, my phone vibrated with an incoming call labeled "Home." Mark calling at this hour meant something urgent must have happened. My heart raced as I quickly answered.
"Mark? What's wrong?"
There was a brief silence on the other end before Mark's familiar voice came through, though his tone was more somber and tense than usual.
"Anna, can you come home now? Lily... she had a nightmare and has been crying for you. I've tried everything to get her back to sleep."
"I'm on my way," I replied immediately while starting to clear my desk. "Tell her Mommy will be home in twenty minutes."
"Thanks," Mark said quietly before lowering his voice. "She mentioned dreaming about two mommies—one is you and... not you. This dream has been happening more frequently lately."
My hand froze mid-motion. "What do you mean? Who is this 'not you' mommy?"
"She can't explain it clearly; she just keeps repeating 'the other mommy.' It might just be her imagination," Mark said with forced lightness. "Don’t worry; it could just be that she watched some cartoon about twins."
I hung up feeling a strange chill creeping up my spine. Lily had never mentioned such dreams to me before. Why would she dream of "another mommy"? That thought suddenly triggered a vague memory—I seemed to have seen something odd in Lily's sketchbook days ago but had been interrupted by an urgent call and forgotten about it afterward.
With confusion lingering in my mind, I quickly shut down my computer and locked up the lab. The motion-sensor lights in the hallway flickered on one by one with my steps before gradually turning off behind me. As I pushed open the glass doors of the building, a cool night breeze greeted me, slightly easing my headache. The research center's parking lot was nearly empty, with only a few cars parked alone—including my deep blue electric vehicle.
As I walked toward the car, a shadowy figure darted past from the distant darkness. I halted, scanning my surroundings with caution, but all I found was the empty parking lot and the rustling leaves.
"Is anyone there?" I whispered, my voice echoing sharply in the stillness of the night.
There was no response.
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