It was supposed to be an ordinary evening. Warm air, quiet roads, and the soft hum of a car engine beneath a sky slowly fading into dusk. Artem was driving home from a long day, his thoughts preoccupied with an upcoming job interview, a mortgage payment, and the dull rhythm of adult life. He wasn’t speeding. He wasn’t distracted.

Just one moment.

A flicker in the side mirror. A sound — like fabric catching on metal. The sudden thud of impact.

His foot slammed the brake pedal. The tires screamed.

Everything stopped.

Artem jumped out of the car, heart pounding, hands trembling. About twenty feet in front of the headlights, on the cold asphalt, lay a young woman. She wasn’t moving. She looked delicate — white coat, long dark hair, one arm outstretched as if reaching for something.

He froze in terror.

Fumbling for his phone, he dropped it twice before finally managing to call emergency services. As he waited, he noticed something strange: his right hand was clenched tightly. Tighter than it should have been. His knuckles were white, nails dug deep into his skin.

And in his palm — something small. Something metallic.

He slowly opened his hand.

Inside was a golden locket. Thin, worn with age, warm from his grip. On its surface, an inscription:

“Find me, if you remember.”

Artem blinked.

He knew this locket.

The Girl on the Road Wasn’t a Stranger
As he looked closer at the girl’s face, her features stirred something deep inside him — a memory long buried. A face he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

It was Lera.

His first love.

They had been inseparable as kids, two neighbors in an old Soviet apartment block, sharing secrets, candy, and summer afternoons on rusty swings. Before her family abruptly moved abroad when they were twelve.

He had given her this locket as a farewell — a silly, clumsy gesture. “If you ever find it, you’ll find me,” he had said. The kind of childish vow meant to fade with time.

And yet, here she was.

On the ground. Unconscious. Wearing that same locket — the one now somehow in his hand.

He fell to his knees.

She Survived — But Had No Memory
Lera woke up two days later in the hospital. Miraculously, no broken bones. No major trauma. But her mind was blank. She didn’t remember who she was. Didn’t recognize him. She had no ID, no phone, and no explanation for how she’d ended up walking alone down a dark country road.

Artem visited every day. At first, just to check on her. Then — to remind her of who she was. He told her stories about their childhood: the paper boats in puddles, the time they tried to bury a time capsule under the playground, how she once made him a birthday card using only a red crayon.

She smiled politely. Listened. But nothing sparked… until he showed her the locket again.

When he placed it in her palm, she gasped.

“I… I don’t know why, but this feels like mine. I feel… safe when I touch it.”

She wore it again after that day — never taking it off.

Slowly, Memories Returned
Over the following weeks, small things came back. A song. The smell of rain on concrete. Her name. Then one morning, she looked at Artem and asked:

— “Did you used to call me ‘Lersha’?”

He nodded, eyes wide.

— “That was you,” she whispered.

The ice had cracked. And through that crack, a flood came.

Within months, they were inseparable again — not just in memory, but in life. Their connection wasn’t the fragile thread of childhood nostalgia anymore. It was something stronger. Something tested by time, fate, and the surreal collision that brought them back together.

They moved in together. Rebuilt their lives. Not as strangers, not as kids — but as two people who had, against all odds, found each other twice.

And the locket? It hangs on a hook by the door. Not as a decoration. Not even as a symbol.