"Repressed Memories are Meant to Stay Dead"

**"Repressed Memories are Meant to Stay Dead"** is the fifth tale in the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the Nolseep Podcast. In it, a girl witnesses her sister's murder. Written by C.K. Walker, it has a runtime of 18:40 and was performed by Susan Knowles. It is the 419th tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

A girl loves the house she shares with her father, her sister Anna, and her mother, who are both artists. The house is painted intricately, with fantastical touches like a bird fountain in the kitchen, a hallway painted like an aquarium, and a statue of a dancing man on the staircase landing.

Several men occupy the family's lives, like the father's brother Peter, Anna's piano teacher David, and a colleague of the mother named Samuel. The girl lives a happy life in the house with many friends, who always like to come over.

Late one night, the girl stays up late playing video games. The mother plays piano in her room while Anna goes to bed early for an exhibition in the morning. At some time during the night, the girl hears a creaking noise in the hallway. Peeking out, she sees a someone standing in the dark at the end, having just come up the stairs.

Without warning, the figure rushes down the hallway into Anna's room. The girl falls over and passes out from fright. In the morning, Peter discovers Anna's body in her room, her head bashed in.

The mother goes into hysterics as the body is taken away. The girl is sent to live with her aunt and uncle for a while. The police question her for hours about who she saw in the hallway. Although she can recall they were male and that it was someone she knew, she can't remember exactly who it was. Frustrated, the police leave. A child psychologist comes soon after and explains that she repressed the memory of who she saw because the event was so traumatic.

After a few weeks, the girl returns home to find that all the walls in the house have been painted gray and the fountain is gone. Her mother doesn't look at her until a week later, and doesn't talk to her for a month. Occasionally a policeman will stop by to ask her if she remembers anything, to which she always says no. The mother becomes abusive, screaming and demanding at the girl to remember who killed her daughter. No matter how hard she tries, the girl can't recall who she saw.

The girl eventually goes away to college and gets drunk constantly. She always has a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she failed Anna. On her graduation day, her parents unexpectedly show up. Her mother throws her arms around her and apologizes for her terrible behavior. She offers to let the girl stay at the house again while she looks for a job. When she returns, she finds it restored to its former artistic glory.

At the graduation party, numerous relatives come to congratulate her on her progress. The girl finally comes to terms with Anna's death and heads upstairs to look into her room, which has remained untouched since the murder.

She suddenly hears a creak out in the hallway. Turning to look, she sees Samuel mounting the staircase with the statue of the dancing man behind him. The memory suddenly comes rushing back of seeing the statue climb the stairs, run down the hallway in the dark, and bash Anna's head in while she screamed. The statue then walked to the girl's door, bathed in blood, and danced to the mother's piano music floating down the hallway before running away in the dark.