Minh An didn't turn around right away.
Sometimes the body understands danger before the mind can name it. His shoulders stiffened. The cold from the hand on his shoulder spread down to his elbow, then stopped at the wrist holding his phone.
Tung was still standing in front of him.
“What’s wrong?”
Minh An looked at his phone screen. The second message was still there.
If you're still there, don't go to the station tomorrow.
He swallowed hard.
“Did you just touch my shoulder?”
Tung frowned.
“No.”
“Then who—”
Minh An spun around.
Behind him were only the white wall, the metal cabinet holding the chemicals, and the rain-streaked glass window. No one. No shadow of a person. No handprint on the shoulder of his shirt.
But that scent was still there.
A very faint smell, like dry fabric after passing through the rain. He didn't know where he'd smelled it before. He only knew that when he recognized it, a sharp pain suddenly stabbed through his chest.
“Minh An.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
The moment the answer left his mouth, his phone screen lit up again.
The third message didn't come from the numberless phone number. It appeared beneath the two previous lines, with no sender's name and no timestamp.
Don't tell the person with you.
Tung saw it this time too.
He stopped smiling.
For a few seconds, the room held nothing but rain pounding on the corrugated roof and the scanner's hum as it ran idle. The blue light beneath the lid blinked steadily, like an eye that refused to close.
“All right,” Tung said. “I think we should call the police.”
“Over a text?”
“Over a dead phone receiving texts.”
Minh An lowered his gaze to the corner of the screen. The battery icon was still red and empty. He pulled out the charging cable and plugged it into the outlet beside the table. The phone didn't indicate that it was receiving power.
Tung took out his own phone and photographed the screen.
The photo showed only one line of text.
Don't tell the person with you.
The two earlier messages had vanished.
“Did you see that?” Tung asked.
Minh An didn't answer.
He was used to things disappearing during restoration. A faded layer of color. A face eaten away by light. A name no longer legible on the back of the photo. But he had never seen a message disappear like that, as if it had never been sent to any particular person at all.
He picked up the photograph.
The girl in the photo was still standing behind him. Her hand rested on his shoulder, her fingers thin and pale. Only this time, her face was no longer turned toward the camera.
She was looking at Tung.
A strange thought passed through Minh An's mind.
She didn't want Tung to know about her.
Or she was afraid of Tung.
“Don't come here alone tomorrow,” Tung said.
“The message told me not to go to the station.”
“I know how to read.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Wait for the phone to charge, check with the carrier, and then—”
Tung stopped.
Across the room, the blue umbrella propped against the metal cabinet suddenly toppled onto the floor.
No one had touched it.
Minh An stared at the umbrella. The fabric had faded, one rib was bent, and the handle was scratched with white streaks. He recognized it before he even stepped closer.
It was the umbrella he'd once thrown away.
He remembered that afternoon. Heavy rain. The flooded tunnel rising to his knees. Lam—
Minh An froze.
The name surfaced in his mind without a shape, yet it made him grip the edge of the table.
Lam.
A short syllable. Soft. Familiar enough to be terrifying.
“Are you okay?” Tung asked.
Minh An bent down to pick up the umbrella. The instant his fingers touched the handle, a sound rang out in the room.
Very softly.
Like a girl's voice speaking right beside his ear.
“Do you still remember?”
Minh An jerked his hand away.
The umbrella fell again.
Tung hadn't heard anything. He only stared at Minh An, his expression growing more troubled by the second.
“Let's go home.”
“Did you hear—”
“No.” Tung cut him off. “I didn't hear anything.”
It didn't sound like a denial. It sounded like a plea.
Minh An looked at his friend for a long time, then turned off the light in the restoration room. Before leaving, he turned back for one last look at the photograph.
The girl had disappeared.
Only a wing-shaped water stain remained in the lower-right corner.
Across the stain, in blue ink that hadn't been there before, a name appeared.
Lam.
That night, Minh An didn't sleep.
He left his phone on the table and kept it plugged in for three hours. By midnight, the screen was still dark. Tung called six times and sent eleven messages, but Minh An replied only once, saying he was fine.
He didn't mention the name.
Nor did he say that ever since leaving the restoration room, he had the persistent feeling that someone was walking behind him. Not too close. Just close enough that every time he turned around, he found the hallway empty and heard water dripping from a pair of nonexistent shoes.
Around two in the morning, Minh An opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was an old tin box. He didn't remember when he'd put it there. The lid showed a blue umbrella with almost all of its paint peeled away.
He opened the box.
Inside were only a yellowed train ticket, a cream-colored button, and a piece of paper folded into quarters.
Minh An unfolded the paper.
The handwriting on it was identical to the writing on the back of the photo.
If you forget me, find me where we've never been.
Another line lay beneath it, crossed out again and again.
North station, the last train at—
The rest was blurred by water.
The phone on the table lit up.
There was no text alert. No power icon. The screen showed only an incoming call from a name that wasn't in his contacts.
Lam.
Minh An stared at the name until it began to blur.
He didn't know why his hand reached for the answer button.
There was no voice on the other end at first. Only the sound of running water, very close, and the tremor of metal in a tunnel deep beneath the earth.
Then came a breath.
A girl asked:
“Are you Minh An?”
He sprang to his feet.
“Who are you?”
“I don't know.”
Her voice was slightly hoarse, as if she'd just woken from a long dream.
“But I know you.”
Minh An tightened his grip on the phone against his ear.
“Have we met before?”
“No.”
She was silent for a moment.
“At least not in this world.”
The light bulb flickered.
A thin trail of water began crawling up the window glass, moving backward from the sill toward the ceiling.
Minh An didn't move.
“Where are you?”
“In my office.”
“Address?”
“Nguyễn Du Street, number seventeen.”
Minh An looked up.
Across the street, through the curtain of rain, building number seventeen appeared. It had been demolished eight years ago.
He pulled the curtain aside.
In the pitch-black room on the sixth floor of the nonexistent building, a figure stood by the glass.
The girl wore a cream-colored dress.
Her hair was tied low.
One hand was pressed against the glass.
“Minh An?” Her voice came through the phone, trembling more than before. “Can you see me?”
He looked at the figure across the street.
“Yes.”
The moment he said it, the building disappeared.
Rain fell into the empty space where it had stood. There was no sound of collapse. No dust. Just a patch of darkness abruptly returned to the city.
A ragged breath came from the other end of the line.
“So we've found each other.”
“Lam.”
Minh An spoke her name for the first time.
On the other end of the phone, she fell completely silent.
Then came a dry, sharp crash, as if something had just shattered.
“You mustn't call my name,” Lam said.
“Why?”
“Because every time you call it…”
Her voice grew softer.
“Something disappears where I am.”
The call ended.
The phone returned to its black screen.
Minh An stood alone by the window. In his palm, the cream-colored button had grown hot at some point.
Outside, where building number seventeen had once stood, one window was still lit.
And in that window, a girl was writing his name across the fogged glass.