Ned Leeds

The night in New York had never been truly quiet.

Ned Leeds sat alone in his room, staring at his turned-off monitor. On the table lay a phone, a disassembled laptop, and a mug of long-cold coffee.

Everything was familiar. Except for one thing.

He couldn’t remember his best friend.

Ned remembered MJ. He remembered school, MIT, his grandmother. But as soon as he tried to recall the person who had once been by his side constantly, his thoughts scattered, leaving behind only a strange ache.

“I did have…” he whispered. “A best friend.”

He opened some old photos.

In one of them was a familiar face.

Ned stared at it for a few seconds, but the name slipped from his memory as if it had never existed.

“Who are you…?”

The laptop screen flickered.

“Do you want to know?”

Ned spun around abruptly. The room was empty.

“Who’s there?”

In response, a quiet laugh echoed right inside his head.

You’ve lost him.

“Who?”

The one you needed.

Ned clutched his head. Fragments flashed before his eyes: a red-and-blue suit, a mask, portals, a falling man… And then—nothingness.

“If I can’t remember him…”

He looked up at his reflection in the window.

The reflection was smiling.

Ned — no.

“…then I need to find a way to remember.”

A thin crack appeared in the glass.

Then a second one.

Ned ran his fingers along the cold window and suddenly realized he was smiling.

“And if it doesn’t work…”

He chuckled softly.

“…I’ll have to create someone who can.”

A green mask with a sinister grin lay on the floor. Ned couldn’t remember where it had come from.

He slowly picked it up.

And for the first time all evening, the emptiness inside him stopped feeling like emptiness.

Someone appeared inside it.

Someone who knew exactly what he wanted.

A goblin.