The first time it happened, I thought I was tired.
I was sitting in front of my computer when I noticed a slight pressure in my throat.
Nothing painful.
Just the feeling that I needed to swallow.
I did.
The pressure disappeared.
Or so I thought.
A few minutes later it returned.
Exactly in the same place.
Not a general discomfort.
A precise point.
As if someone had pressed a fingertip beneath my jaw and left it there.
I swallowed again.
The relief returned.
And so did my attention.
That was where the problem began.
I opened my phone’s camera.
I wanted to check whether there was a mark.
There wasn’t.
My skin looked normal.
I locked the screen.
I went back to work.
Three minutes later the camera was still open.
I didn’t remember leaving it that way.
The image showed my neck.
The same position.
The same light.
But something was different.
The mark was there.
Small.
Pale.
Almost invisible.
I walked to the bathroom mirror.
Nothing.
My skin was still clear.
I looked back at the phone.
The mark remained.
I checked five times.
Then eight.
Then I stopped counting.
The anomaly was no longer the mark.
The anomaly was that I was beginning to know it.
I knew where it would appear.
I knew which angle made it visible.
I knew how long it would take to return.
That night I took a screenshot.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I needed evidence.
Something stable.
Something that would stay the same.
The next morning the screenshot was still there.
The date was still there.
The time was still there.
But the mark had moved.
Only a few millimeters.
Enough.
I convinced myself I was remembering it incorrectly.
It was the most reasonable explanation.
Until I found another screenshot.
I had no memory of taking it.
The image showed exactly the same mark.
Exactly the same neck.
But the timestamp was from a week earlier.
I kept looking.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I needed to know which image was impossible.
Then something worse appeared.
Not in the photograph.
In me.
I began anticipating the pressure.
I felt the urge to swallow seconds before it arrived.
As if my body already knew it was coming.
As if I were recognizing something.
Not discovering it.
Recognizing it.
Since then I keep checking.
The camera.
The mirror.
The screenshots.
The exact position of the mark.
The problem is no longer the throat.
Or the photograph.
Or even the pressure.
The problem is that some nights I open the camera to make sure the mark is still there.
And I find the application already open.
Pointing at my neck.
Waiting for me.
My hand rises.
It stops before touching the skin.
I’m not moving it.
But I already know the sensation that will appear when I do.
And that is exactly what I cannot remember learning.
My neck I should…
