SHORT STORY THE FORGOTTEN LETTER
THE FORGOTTEN LETTER
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
It was earlier than usual when the alarm clock, with unprecedented aggression, jolted Daniel out of his slumber. That cold February morning, he had had to wake up earlier than normal to run some errands out of town.
He was 35 years old and lived a routine life, marked by the absence of Lucas, his older brother, who had disappeared without a trace ten years earlier. No one had ever heard from him again.
His parents had never been able to get over it. He may have had something to do with the accident. At least, that’s the conclusion the police investigators reached after finding them dead in bed from gas inhalation.
Daniel finished getting ready and had a frugal breakfast before leaving his apartment. He hurried down the stairs and, upon reaching the lobby, mechanically opened his mailbox. As he did so, he thought to himself: “Why am I opening it? It’ll be a while before the mailman comes.”
He was about to close it, almost without looking, when he thought he glimpsed something inside. It must be advertising, he thought, as his hand slid in search of whatever it was.
It was a white envelope, yellowed with age, with no return address. It looked like a letter from another time, a forgotten letter. Only his name, written in capital letters, appeared on it. The handwriting seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
He tore open the envelope and took out a folded letter, also on aged paper. He unfolded it and, to his surprise, saw a drawing: an old house that reminded him of a place from the past, and a phrase made from letters cut from newspapers and magazines that read: “To know the end, you must return to the beginning.”
It seemed like utter nonsense to him, and he was about to throw it away when he managed to picture the handwriting on the envelope… his brother Lucas’s face formed vividly in his mind… The drawing of the house was the abandoned house on the outskirts of the city, which, many years before, had been the scene of his and his brother’s childhood games. It later became a kind of “closet” where they hid things from their youth, practically until Lucas’s disappearance.
Intrigued, he carefully put the drawing away and decided that upon returning from his errands, he would stop by the place to see if the abandoned house still existed or if it had become something else entirely.
During the morning, while he was dealing with the matters that had taken him out of town, he felt a certain unease… was his brother trying to tell him something? Was someone who knew his brother passing him some information?
Around four in the afternoon, as the sun began its descent, he arrived at the abandoned house, which, to his surprise, seemed exactly the same as the last time he had entered it more than ten years ago.
He approached the door, looked around, and when he confirmed that no one was there, he pushed it open. Its hinges creaked as it opened until Daniel could slip through.
The dimly lit interior was much more dilapidated and unsettling than he remembered. He took his cell phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight. As he walked through the main room, he thought he discovered clues that his brother was still alive. He also felt watched. He tried to search the shadows for anyone, but he couldn’t see or sense any movement.
With his heart racing, he entered the room where they used to hide things, and to his surprise, he began to glimpse things that looked like Lucas’s personal belongings. On top of a half-destroyed table, he saw a book.
It was covered in dust, but curiosity overcame his reluctance, and he blew hard to remove some of the grime and opened it. It was his brother’s diary… He skimmed the last pages and saw something unsettling. A strange and unbelievable confession from his brother… Upon reading it, he discovered that his brother’s disappearance was a setup planned by himself to escape a life full of problems and debt. The anonymous letter had been written by his brother to test his loyalty and love. To see if that loyalty and love were enough to make him travel to the old mansion.
It seemed that, finally, his brother was alive, but he still didn’t know where or if that was really the case. Disturbed, he decided to leave the mansion. He checked the time on his phone; more than an hour and a half had passed. He went to the door to leave. And he opened it, and the sun, already quite low but still intensely bright as it emerged from the shadows, completely blinded him. About ten meters away, he thought he saw a silhouette; it looked like his brother’s. Lucas’s voice reached his ears: “Daniel, it’s all been a psychological game, to make you confront your fears and decisions.”
The young man, still blinded by the sun, opened his arms and quickly made his way to where his brother was, ready to embrace him.
Inexplicably, when he arrived where he thought his brother was… the sun no longer blinded him, and there was no one there…
Lucas had mysteriously disappeared for the second time, as if he had never been there. Daniel was left alone with the letter, the diary, and the feeling that it could all have been a hallucination… or was it a real encounter? Daniel stared at the mansion, questioning reality and his own perception…
The Forgotten Letter – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés