---
The wind came first.
Not the kind that shakes trees or snuffs out flames,
but the kind that carries the scent of soil after the first rain—
like a memory unwilling to be forgotten.
He woke… or perhaps drifted into a season he didn't recognize.
The sky above was gray, yet gentle.
Yellowing grass swayed slowly, dancing without urgency across a field that felt almost familiar.
He stood there, wordless,
like a name left unsent at the bottom of a letter.
---
In the distance, a small house stood quietly.
Its wooden frame had faded. Its windows clouded with time.
Yet from its chimney rose a thin trail of smoke—a heartbeat that refused to stop.
And in front of that house—he saw her.
---
No longer the laughing girl from his dreams.
Now she moved slowly, watering flowers,
wiping sweat from her brow with a gesture soft and sure.
Her hair was tied back loosely. Her frame taller, steadier.
Her face still carried traces of childhood
that had long departed—but never truly left.
In her hand, a basket of dried herbs and damp cloths.
Inside that house, her mother lay resting.
And he—he was not there.
Not as a husband.
Not as a father.
Not as anything at all.
---
He stepped forward.
But the grass beneath him did not bend.
No prints. No shadow.
Even the air passed through him without a pause.
He didn't feel like a man. Only the shape of guilt given form.
" I wasn't there when they waited "
" Now I return as something that cannot answer "
---
The girl sat beside her mother.
She replaced a cloth on the old woman's forehead,
then read softly from an old book—one that Rane had once written,
though the cover bore no name.
" This page ' she said gently,
" was always her favorite "
" The one where the man almost came home, but chose not to knock "
Her mother smiled faintly, her voice just a whisper:
" He was afraid " she said.
" But he loved her… in silence "
---
The wind passed through the trees like memory unraveling.
Rane stood in the place time could not touch,
watching a life unfold without him—
yet somehow, it still carried fragments of him in its quiet corners.
He wanted to cry. But he could not.
He had no body in this world—only awareness, only weight.
---
The sky shifted.
Sunlight broke through a crack in the clouds,
falling upon the girl's hair like a sudden warmth from the past.
She looked toward the field… directly where Rane stood.
And for a heartbeat—just one—her eyes seemed to recognize something.
But she did not wave.
Did not smile.
She simply closed her book gently, and whispered:
" Come home, even if you're no longer real "
---
Then everything began to dissolve.
The light faded like a final breath before sleep.
The grass sank into shadow. The sounds fell into a hush.
And when Rane opened his eyes again,
he was back in the dark—
alone, in a place that held no time.
He sat there.
Silent.
But the feeling in his chest had not faded.
Something was left in that world.
Something that no longer belonged to him.
But still remembered him… enough to call him home.
And so he closed his eyes again, slowly.
Not to sleep—
but to remember with everything he was.