NOVEL

​I DO NOT FORGET

​Prologue: The Silo in the Mist

​Summer in the valley had the color of dry corn and the pungent smell of sun-scorched earth. At ten years old, Pietro was a quiet child, a timid observer who found refuge in speed. He was the fastest at running through the thick, tall rows of corn, slipping away like a light shadow. To him, his father Remo was a gentle giant: a man with hands permanently stained with grease and dirt, marked by hard work but invested in an almost heroic aura. Beneath that appearance of strength and protection, however, Remo concealed a deep and restless shadow.

​That morning, the challenge among the village boys was simple and ruthless: whoever reached the abandoned old farmhouse first—known to everyone as the witch's lair—would win a shiny glass marble. Pietro ran faster than anyone else, losing himself in the green labyrinth of stalks until he found himself blocked in front of an imposing, rusty metal silo, half-submerged by briars and wild vegetation.

​A dull thud, a metallic clicking sound from inside caught his attention. Driven by a mix of fear and curiosity, Pietro climbed the rickety ladder, clutching the corrosion-weakened rungs. He brought his face close to a small porthole stained with rust and dust. In the dense darkness of the structure, illuminated only by a thin ray of light filtering through a collapsed roof, he saw a hand. A small, pale hand, desperately reaching upward to catch that sliver of brightness.

​With his heart in his throat, his voice reduced to a whisper, Pietro murmured, "Is someone there?"

​From the darkness of the silo emerged Silvia’s face: her clothes frayed, her skin dirty with mud, but her eyes incredibly bright, wide with terror.

​"They told me if I speak, the wolf will eat me..." the little girl trembled, staring at him with a thread of voice. "Are you the wolf?"

​Pietro shook his head, overwhelmed by a cold shiver. From that exact moment, Pietro's carefree childhood vanished: a double life began, made of clandestine visits to the silo, bringing Silvia pieces of stolen bread, sour cherries, and dog-eared comic books to squeeze a tiny smile out of her amidst the nightmare.

​Chapter 1: The Return to the Wounded Earth

​Years later, the landscape hadn't changed, but time had carved deep wounds. A dark car, an older model maintained with meticulous care, slowly traveled along a country lane wrapped in a milky haze. Plowed fields as far as the eye could see, bare and skeletal trees along the ditches, and a humid, heavy air that tasted of wet earth.

​At the wheel sat Pietro. His face was marked not by the passing years, but by an inner gravity that weighed down his gaze. He had short hair, a well-groomed beard incapable of concealing the tension in his jaw, and in his eyes the same watchful distrust of the child who once fled through the corn.

​He pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. The silence of the plains plunged into the cabin, broken only by the light hiss of the dry wind. In front of him stood a wrought-iron gate, bent in on itself and devoured by rust. Beyond the threshold, the old farmhouse appeared like a wreck swallowed by briars and neglect. And there, standing like a decadent monarch, was the silo itself. The sheets of metal were even more corroded, stained with dark rust, but its unmistakable silhouette remained an indelible scar in the middle of nowhere.

​Pietro got out of the car. Every step on the gravel mixed with dry weeds sounded like a warning. His right hand instinctively plunged into his jeans pocket, tightly gripping a cold, spherical, and opaque object: a glass marble scratched by time, the only fragment left of a summer that had forever changed the course of his life.

​He stopped in front of the old stable door. On the wooden beam above the entrance, carved with the tip of an old knife and covered by layers of dust, the faded signs of a childhood that no longer belonged to him resisted. It is commonly said that time heals all wounds, but Pietro knew well that time is merely a skilled accomplice: it limits itself to hiding the evidence, covering the blood with dust, leaving the underlying rot intact.

​He approached the base of the silo, placing the palm of his hand on the freezing metal sheet. He closed his eyes for a moment, and in the ghostly silence of the countryside, he thought he could still hear the distant echo of a desperate voice. Then, opening his eyes, a detail shook him: near the metal sheet, the tall grass wasn't tilted by the wind, but had been recently crushed. Someone had been there, just a few minutes before. Someone was waiting for him in the shadows.

​Chapter 2: Under the Metal Sheet

​His heartbeat accelerated, pounding in his ears like a muffled drum. Pietro followed the tracks on the trampled grass that curved around the metal body of the silo. With a decisive movement, he bent down and slipped his fingers into the lower perimeter, where the metal, corroded by time and moisture, had detached from the concrete foundation, leaving a gap wide enough to allow a faint beam of light to penetrate inside.

​He pushed aside a pile of rotting leaves and damp earth. There, nestled in the hidden cavity between the metal and the ground, was a worn plastic wrapper. Inside were no ordinary items: a 'M' brandished faintly, burned onto a small block of wood, accompanied by old handwritten notes in black ink, now faded but incredibly legible. They were his father Remo’s secret diaries, detailed annotations describing movements, dates, and figures of a corruption system linked to the construction of the large dam upstream from the valley.

​Pietro flipped through those pages with trembling fingers. Every line was a chilling confirmation: Remo had not ended up in prison by mistake or for a common crime, but because he had discovered the structural flaws and omissions of the consortium, choosing to cover everything up to protect his family, or perhaps forced into silence.

​A sudden rustle among the briars interrupted his thoughts.

​Pietro sprang to his feet, clutching the bag of documents and the glass marble in his pocket. A few yards away, a hooded figure moved rapidly through the haze, disappearing toward the old river sluice gate. Without hesitation, Pietro gave chase, determined to find out who was spying on his footsteps and knew the secrets of that cursed place.

​Chapter 3: The River Sluice

​The run across the muddy fields burned his lungs. The mist grew thicker, almost as if it wanted to protect the secrets of that forgotten land. Pietro continued to chase the dark shadow, guided only by the dull sound of footsteps crushing the reed beds along the riverbank.

​The figure vanished beyond the rusty gates of the disused sluice, an area barred for years due to the danger of collapse. Reaching the gate, Pietro climbed over it agilely, landing on the damp concrete of the control platform. In the center of the square, half-destroyed by rains and partially submerged by stagnant water, lay an old dark leather bag, identical to the ones the consortium technicians used in the eighties.

​Pietro approached with caution. Inside the leather bag were not only more documents, but complete technical files, expert reports, and irrefutable proof of a systemic corruption that had compromised the safety of the dam. On the first page of the files appeared an unmistakable signature: that of Remo.

​As he examined the papers, a metallic reflection caught his attention in the stagnant water of the sluice. Behind him, a heavy silhouette emerged from the mist, blocking his escape route toward the gate.

​"You've dug too deep, Pietro," said a harsh, cold voice coming from behind the high collar of a dark coat. It was Mario, his father's former partner, the man who for years had pretended to be a family friend while managing the consortium's silences.

​Chapter 4: The Secret of the Pillars

​The light rain began to fall, turning the earth into a slippery quagmire. Mario advanced slowly, his hands buried in his pockets, maintaining control of the situation.

​"Your father was a hero in his own way, Pietro," Mario muttered with a bitter smirk, looking at the leather bag. "He agreed to disappear, to take the blame, and to end up in disgrace just so we wouldn't let them touch his children. And now you want to ruin everything to exhume ghosts that should stay underground."

​Pietro clenched his fists, feeling the accumulated anger and pain in his chest explode. "This isn't justice, Mario. You destroyed an entire valley and the lives of Silvia and my family to cover up your dirty business."

​Before Mario could take another step forward, the sound of tires on wet asphalt broke the tension: a second car skidded along the embankment, and from the lowered windows appeared the silhouette of Elena, the local journalist who had secretly helped Pietro piece together the puzzle, following him at a safe distance.

​Taking advantage of the moment of distraction and the glare of the headlights hitting Mario, Pietro sprang forward, striking the former partner with a firm push and making him fall into the wet mud. He grabbed the leather bag and ran toward Elena's jeep, jumping aboard as she sped away to safety before the arrival of the police Elena had already called.

​Chapter 5: The Epilogue at the Dam

​The epilogue of the story unfolded in the hours that followed, when the documents recovered in the leather bag and the silo diaries were handed over to anti-corruption magistrates. The evidence gathered unequivocally proved that the dam had a structural resistance forty percent lower than safety parameters, and that the false blame attributed to Remo served to cover the responsibilities of the consortium's top management.

​At dawn the next day, law enforcement raided the consortium's administrative offices and the downstream pillar warehouses, arresting those responsible and putting an end to decades of omertà.

​Pietro found himself once again in front of the gate of the old farmhouse, this time with a different lightness in his heart. The valley mist did not clear entirely, but the secrets had come to light. He pulled the glass marble from his pocket, looked at it one last time reflecting the first rays of sunlight trying to break through the clouds, and understood that the past could not be erased, but could finally stop terrifying him.