Semblance of Remembrance

Prologue

For her entire life, Ayaka Komeiji had always had a supernatural memory. She had remembered every moment of her life, even the first few seconds after her birth on August 16, 2008. Furthermore, she has the ability to recall any information that she has gained, either from reading or conversation no matter how long it has been since she has learned it. If someone were to ask her where she learned something, she could instantly respond with the exact quote of the book or the exact sentence of whoever taught her it. However, her ability was not as perfect as it may seem. Her ability made it impossible to forget the more negative parts of her life and her horrific nightmares. One particular recurring nightmare, in which Ayaka was in a dark forest just as the sun had started to set. Each time that scenery came up in her dream, she always experienced the same situation of being chased by a ball of pure darkness that always shouted "Oooh, a human! Time to dig in!" in a cheerful tone. This nightmare changed her personality and even caused Ayaka to develop a fear of the dark.

When she was very young, she was very excitable and loved to interact with people; however, because of the nightmare, she started to become extremely timid, to the point where she could not in any capability interact with people who she was not acquainted with. If she was forced to talk to someone she did not know, she would constantly stutter and would have trouble forming coherent sentences. In contrast, whenever she talked to a person she knew well (which was only her parents), she would constantly introduce new topics to continue the conversation while eagerly participating and adding her input on the current topic. Even after 10 years, she still could not overcome her timidity as a result of her limited conversations with other people apart from her family. Other than that, she was extremely diligent and modest. She would try to help her parents with anything that she could. Speaking of her parents, her father was the finance minister for Japan while her mother was a teacher.

When she was growing up, her father taught her about the economy and statistics, while her mother taught her general subjects like science, math, english, japanese, and history. Due to her supernatural memory, she was able to learn all their lessons quickly and even developed a love for learning new things. When she wasn't doing anything, she could often be found in the giant library that her family owned, reading a variety of books and expanding her knowledge.

In school, she always scored a perfect score on all of her exams and was frequently regarded as the model student; however, she never befriended anyone due to her intense aversion to interacting with strangers. Whenever there was freetime at school, she was so immersed in a book that her classmates chose to leave her alone. She never participated in any extracurricular activity, instead opting to head straight home after class ended.

Starting when she was 6, she has followed the same basic schedule each day: wake up, eat breakfast, go to school/learning from her parents, eat lunch, read books, help parents, eat dinner, read books, and finally, sleep. She lived a fairly simple and monotonous life despite having such a powerful ability.

Her life proceeded fairly uneventfully,

Friday, August 16, 2019

"Happy 11th birthday Ayaka!" Mizuki, Ayaka's mother, gleefully shouted.

"Happy birthday!" Hikaru, her father exclaimed.

"To celebrate your 11th birthday, we decided to buy you two books that we think might catch your interest!" Her mother told her.

Her mother handed Ayaka a neatly wrapped present. Ayaka carefully unwrapped the present before pulling out a thick encyclopedia titled Myths and Legends Around the World and a much thinner book with the words How to Best Learn from Observation written in bold at the top of the front cover. Ayaka was overjoyed at having received these two books because like her mother thought, they did indeed pique her interest.