To Forget and Be Forgotten

Brother Elias sat alone in the small back room of the old mission building, the air thick with the smell of old paper, ink, and damp wood. A single oil lamp flickered on his desk, casting long, unsteady shadows that danced across the walls lined with locked cabinets. It was well past midnight, but sleep had felt impossible tonight.

He had been part of the Church’s surveillance division for eight quiet years. Most of his work involved watching, waiting, and noting small anomalies - rumors of unnatural healing, people who appeared in records decades apart, whispers of the old bloodlines that refused to die out completely. It was patient, often thankless work. But every now and then, something surfaced that made the years feel worth it.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Elias picked up the first file again, its edges yellowed with age.

1925. Marina Beach.

A fisherman named Muthu and his wife had been interviewed after they found a strange woman washed up early one morning. She had been barely conscious, soaked through, and deathly pale. The fisherman had described how she asked for water in broken Tamil, her voice rough as if she hadn’t spoken in a very long time. What stayed with him most was the wound across her neck - raw, deep, and angry, like something that should have killed her.

“She looked like she had already died once,” the fisherman had said back then. “But her eyes… they looked like they had seen too many years for such a young face.”

Elias set that file down and opened the second one.

This report was fresh - only four days old.

A local man, known for loitering near Presidency College and bothering female students, had been brought in after an incident. When the officers pressed him about who had scared him off, the man had grown visibly terrified. His description spilled out in a rush:

“Tall European woman. Very pale skin. Cold, sharp eyes. She didn’t even look scared. She just… stood there. Like she had seen worse things than me.”

Elias placed the two statements side by side under the lamp.

Fifteen years apart.

Two completely unrelated men.

The descriptions were nearly identical.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. The silence in the room felt heavier now. He had read hundreds of files over the years, but this was different. People changed. They aged. Their faces softened or hardened with time. But according to these accounts, this woman had not.

She had appeared half-dead on a beach in 1925.

And now, fifteen years later, she was teaching English Literature at Presidency College, looking exactly the same age.

Elias exhaled slowly.

He gathered both files with careful hands, tucked them under his arm, and left the small room. The corridor was dark and quiet as he made his way toward Father Benedict’s private chamber. The old priest was still awake - a faint line of light showed beneath the door.

Elias knocked softly and entered when invited.

Father Benedict looked up from his reading, his aged face calm but alert. “Elias. What brings you at this hour?”

Without wasting words, Elias placed the two files on the table and explained everything he had found. The 1925 beach sighting. The fisherman’s testimony. The recent incident near the college. The identical descriptions given by two men separated by a decade and a half. He spoke carefully, precisely, the way he had been trained.

Father Benedict listened in complete silence. When Elias finished, the priest remained still for a long moment, then slowly leaned forward and picked up the files. He read through both statements with deliberate care.

“The Seed…” he murmured at last, almost to himself. “We have been watching for signs of her return for a very long time.”

Elias nodded. “She currently goes by the name Seren. She has built a stable identity here in Madras. She is teaching at Presidency College.”

The priest closed the files and looked up, his expression grave.

“We cannot be reckless,” he said quietly. “The British must not learn the full truth. We use their machinery when necessary, but this matter belongs to the Church alone. Increase surveillance. Quietly. Find out who she speaks to. Who she trusts. Especially the Raman girl.”

Elias was about to reply when the door opened without warning.

Captain Edmund Hale stepped into the room, holding a folder of his own. He paused mid-step when he saw both men, surprise flickering across his sharp features.

“Forgive the intrusion,” Hale said smoothly, though his eyes were already scanning the table and the open files. “I didn’t realize the room was occupied.”

He had clearly caught the tail end of the conversation - something about increased surveillance, Presidency College, and the Raman girl.

The air in the room grew noticeably heavier.

Father Benedict’s face remained carefully neutral.

Hale smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Anything I should be made aware of, Father?” he asked, voice light but probing.