WHO
​
Rather a peculiar morning it was — a humid day.
I woke up to a quarrel.
“WHO are you?”
“Why are you sleeping with me?”
“Why are you in our house?”
My eyes were wide open from all the screaming, my head pounding from overtime and confusion. I stepped out of the room — my parents stood in front of me, faces twisted in disbelief.
“And now WHO are you?”
“Are you guys drunk? Or too tired to recognize your own offspring?”
They stared back, blank, terrified. Any explanation I tried didn’t work. They just kept looking at me with that same expression that screamed, WHO are you?
The newspaper boy arrived. I went out to greet him, as I always did. He was once my classmate, a friend struggling through a financial crisis.
“Hello, Mark.”
“Sorry… do I know you?”
“You too?”
Mark left, uneasy. I stood there, unable to think straight. It felt like I’d been dropped into a world that looked like mine but wasn’t. No one knew me. Not even my parents.
I dressed up and went to the office. And, not to my greatest surprise, there was chaos everywhere. People shouting, crying, fighting. Everyone questioning everyone else’s identity. The twins across the street didn’t know each other.
At the office, the same madness. Just one question echoing through every wall —
“WHO are you?”
The noise started piercing my head. It was childish, absurd. How could the world forget the world?
With nowhere else to go, I returned home. The house was quiet — too quiet. The silence felt wrong. I stepped in and froze.
A pool of blood on the floor.
My mother, lying there with a stab wound.
My father, sitting on the chair, knife in hand.
“Dad?”
“WHO are you calling Dad? And WHO are you?”
“You killed Mom… why?”
“Mom? You mean this woman? She threatened me, called the cops, told me to get out of my own house. Tried to kill me! Why wouldn’t I defend myself? And you — you better leave before I do the same to you.”
I couldn’t breathe. My father, the murder weapon in his hand, the smell of blood thick in the air — it was too much. No one to tell. No one to even remember.
I went to my girl’s place — she was all I had left. I knocked on her door.
“Yes? What do you want?”
“S…Sa…Sanra. It’s me.”
“Sorry? How do you know my name?”
“You… forgot WHO I was?”
“Sorry?”
“Maybe I knocked on the wrong house.”
“It’s okay.”
And she closed the door.
The girl I trusted most.
The girl I loved more than myself.
The girl I shared everything with — every dream, every night, every truth.
Forgot everything.
Now there’s nothing left.
A killer dad.
A dead mom.
A girl who forgot.
I was angry, but I didn’t know at whom.
Whom could I blame?
Everything was right in front of me — yet gone.
I didn’t know what was happening.
But it was happening. No warning, no reason — just the outcome.
I returned home, praying my father wouldn’t be waiting with the knife.
He wasn’t there.
Neither was my mother’s body.
No blood, no stains — nothing.
It was late. I ate whatever was left from the night before — the night when everyone still had memories.
The next day, I thought I’d check on my father. I went to bed thinking about it.
A nice, blissful morning.
I woke up without stress.
One of the best sleeps I’d had.
The living room felt strange, like it once belonged to more people.
But I’d always lived alone.
A photo on the shelf — a man, a woman, and a small kid. The child looked a little like me.
But I was an orphan.
I stepped outside. The neighborhood was full of unfamiliar faces.
A boy came running toward me, panting, terrified.
“Everyone forgot everyone,” he said.
I stared at him for a long moment.
“WHO are you?”