The dealer opened his eyes.
When he woke up, a ray of light hit his face, forcing him to shut his eyes again. He began to feel his surroundings, and once he did, he quickly realised he was lying on a bed.
The bed felt familiar; for some reason that he couldn't explain, he knew it wasn't a stranger's.
Where was he?
His eyelids were still heavy, not quite ready to let go of the sweet embrace of unconsciousness. Regardless, he did.
He was first greeted by blinding light coming from what seemed to be a window. Then, he saw the walls.
The patterns on the wall were the same as his own, and the window he saw was in the exact same spot as it would be in his own house.
How had he gotten here? Hadn't he just finished with a job?
To his own confusion, he scoffed.
[The dealer] "–––––"
Honestly, he didn't know or care how he got here; at least he was somewhere familiar.
The dealer walked toward the bathroom and then stared into the mirror.
It was a daily ritual, you see—he stared to confirm his own existence. At first, a statement like that sounded crazy, but in reality, what wasn't crazy in the alleyways?
The ritual was born out of caution. When the dealer tried to remember as far back as he could, all he could remember was one thing. His mirror was… delayed. Every movement the mirror made felt weird and slightly off-tempo. It was as if his reflection was thinking, processing his moves, and replicating them.
Eventually, though, his mirror began learning. Maybe a week after the odd incident, his reflection went back to what would be considered normal. The odd delay between them vanished, but the dealer's caution didn't.
So every day, he stood in front of the mirror, waiting for a change—an offbeat movement or a moment of hesitation.
Still, until this day, he saw nothing.
Well, until this day, of course.
At first, his mirror was fine—actually, again, it was perfectly normal. The dealer smiled, he laughed, he waved. Each was an artificial movement that felt foreign to his body. But humans smiled, humans laughed, humans waved. So the dealer had to as well.
Later, the dealer began noticing something strange. It wasn't like last time; it wasn't even related to the movement of his reflection at all.
The thing he had noticed? The dealer had two shadows.
Upon the realization, with something akin to shock, the dealer recoiled backward.
[The dealer] "What?"
Curiosity filled the dealer, and that sort of scared him. The reason why curiosity scared him was simple—curiosity killed the cat, after all.
So the dealer put back on his calm façade, because he was no cat. He was the dealer—the most infamous memory dealer in the alley. Since he was no cat, the dealer couldn't meet the same fate as one.
Slowly and quietly, he walked out of the bathroom. Because of what happened in the mirror, the dealer knew today was going to be different.
He began asking himself what could go wrong today and what he had to do today. There were many things a dealer had to do—sleep, eat, and even live—so picking one out of the many was hard.
Eventually, he singled out one: a meeting. Well, meetings in general weren't terrible, but this one was odd.
Most buyers were usually even more cautious than the dealers themselves. The reason for such a statistic would be easy to explain: buyers weren't dealers.
Dealers stole memories for a living, and they were usually confident in their ability to steal. Many dealers, including himself, required payment before stealing memories.
Obviously, paying beforehand ran the risk of failure, but if any mistake happened during a deal, it wouldn't be a problem for a buyer to leave an anonymous tip about a local dealer.
Buyers were more cautious; they weren't the ones who stole. Rather, they took the cowardly route and paid others to do it for them. Also, even if they had a safety net after failure, nobody loved losing money, so the risk of failure could put them on edge.
This particular deal was different. The buyer approached anonymously and somehow knew exactly what he wanted. The way this buyer described the job was concerning, but the way the buyer described his price was also exhilarating.
Because of the hefty price, the dealer had taken the job and signed the agreement almost instantly.
A hint of unease spread across the dealer's face, and his discomfort seemed visible through his posture.
Was he a fool for accepting such an offer?
[The dealer] "I am no fool. I am the dealer."
With that reassurance, the dealer started his day.
He followed the same routine he always had: a bitter cup of coffee that he actually despised, a half-burnt cigarette, and then a quick check of the newspaper that he didn't even care about. The only purpose it served was really just to quiet his head.
When he was finally ready to go outside, he was immediately hit with silence—deafening silence. In the alleys, nobody made a noise. What was the point in doing so anyway? Conversation was a luxury, a privilege you attained when you didn't need work.
Even the animals knew it too, because even now, he couldn't hear the chirping of birds that his clients had once mentioned.
By noon, the sun hung low and heavy; it painted the dead city, which looked closer to rust than gold.
[The dealer] "Out of all places, why was I born in the most depressing one?"
The mutter was laced with indignation, as if he were blaming someone or something for his birthplace.
The alleys did not feel real. The streetlights would flicker in unison, and the crickets would only chirp once every few days. He could assure you, though, that there was one real thing about this place.
The need for survival was something that every living being in the alleys shared. In the smallest city in the world, something was bound to be common anyway.
Evening crept in. The city hadn't changed much since noon—it never did. The same collective silence still hung over the streets like a fog. The pavement the dealer was stepping on was cracked, and the signs he noticed were all rusted.
Sometimes the dealer wondered why the alleys never got cleaned, and every time he came to the same conclusion: cleanliness was a luxury, and not a single soul who resided here could afford luxury.
The sky began to darken, and the dealer was still walking. His destination? A remote alley that his client had personally picked.
If it were up to the dealer, he would have picked a location close to home, but alas, he was forced to submit to the client's requests if he wanted to afford rent next month.
Eventually, he made it. The dealer always preferred being earlier than his client; it always seemed more professional.
So, while waiting at the very back of the alley, the dealer had time to dwell on the agreement. At least, he thought so. An echo of footsteps could suddenly be heard from the other side of the alley.
The meeting had concluded. It was an exciting one; a young man greeted him with gold—more gold than he had ever seen in his life. His task, though, was nothing short of harrowing.
The dealer had started walking again, not home this time, but to a new destination. He arrived at an estate—a huge one at that. The first thing he saw was towering onyx gates. Usually, things like this would worry the dealer, but luckily, the client had given him a key.
After unlocking and crossing the gate, the dealer couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment; he could have jumped it.
Sulking with that thought, the dealer opened the door to the estate.
Immediately, he was greeted by dark halls—too dark to see anything beyond a far light, presumably a room at the end of the tunnel.
The halls weren't actually as long as he thought, which felt odd. Then again, everything about the place felt odd. His job tonight was to scout for where his victim hid his memories, but he found nothing but books on every floor.
Apart from the second floor, of course.
Armed with that knowledge, the dealer smirked, finally satisfied.
[The dealer] "Let's go home."