"Find it. You need to find the records I left behind."
When I heard these words, I started asking myself certain questions: Why did my image change into the image of someone else? What does it mean by "the records it left behind"? And most importantly, the fact that it was able to change into the image of a different person—does this mean there are more shadows other than the one chasing me and my mother? If there are, where are they coming from?
While I was deep in thought, the image spoke again, saying,
"Room... take out... 1, 10, 5, 9, 11... basement... you will find... My... Your memories... incomplete... need... bring... back... soon..."
A short while after it said those words, it changed back into my image and vanished.
After it vanished, I started thinking about how this could all just be a trap. But then again, if I get killed by them, I'll just go back to the beginning of the day—or to the 8th of September, two days prior. And if I don't go to the basement, I'll have no leads on these creatures. Even if I don't go back in time after I'm killed, I'll still be killed on my first day of high school on the 12th of September. So, I decided to go to the basement.
But there was a problem: I didn't remember there being a basement in my home. Then again, after what "it" told me and what I experienced with my mom, it seemed these creatures have the ability to remove the memories of their victims. That would explain why my mom didn't remember the fact that she's the only one who remembers me. With that logic, there's a possibility that there actually is a basement in this house—I just don't remember it.
I decided to search around the house for a way into the "basement." After several hours of searching, I didn't find anything, and I started to think that the image was just trying to throw me off track or waste my time looking for something that didn't exist.
As I was about to quit searching, I saw it—the image that killed my mom on the second "12th of September." I decided to follow it. It walked all the way to my mom's room. Inside her room, it walked straight through the bookshelf at the back of the room. This shelf was full of books—empty books.
There was a time around three or four years ago when I asked my mother about the books and why they were on the shelf even though they were empty. She said, "I don't know. They belong to someone, but I can't seem to remember who that person is." And now, after all these years, I think I might finally find the truth about these books.
The only problem was figuring out how I was going to get behind the shelf. Seeing that I'm a real person, I couldn't just walk through a solid object, and I didn't have enough strength to completely move it out of the way. But then I recalled something the image said—it was a certain string of numbers: "1, 10, 5, 9, 11." I didn't know if it was a coincidence, but all the books on the shelf were numbered from 1 to 20. The books at the bottom of the shelf weren't numbered.
I carefully removed the books in the order the image mentioned, and as soon as I removed the last book—number 11—I started hearing a creaking noise coming from the back of the shelf. Suddenly, the entire shelf fell to the ground, revealing a flight of stairs leading to what I believed to be the basement.
I picked up a torch lying on my mom's bed, turned it on, and walked into the basement.
After some minutes of walking down the stairs, I finally reached the bottom. In front of me was an empty room with a single table and a book on it. I walked into the room and saw my mother's image as it changed into the unknown image—the same one that had told me to enter this very basement. It walked towards the table in the middle of the room. When it reached the table, it looked back at me and said:
"Records."