Chapter 39: What Was Left Behind, V
It started with a shadow.
I saw him for the first time near the river—just beyond the trees that lined the walking path. A man in a dark coat, shoulders squared, watching the water. He stood so still, it was as if the landscape had shaped itself around him. I slowed my pace, drawn by the presence before I even understood what I was seeing.
When I looked back, he was gone.
No sound. No Motion. Just absence, sudden and complete.
I dismissed it as nothing. A passerby. A trick of light. My own thoughts making patterns where there were none. But the stillness stayed with me, like something left behind in the shape of that pace.
The next day, I saw him again. Near the university gates. Leaning slightly against the iron railing, his face obscured by the low tilt of his coat collar. The crowd passed without noticing him.
This time, he wasn't looking at the river.
He was looking at me.
***
I didn't say anything to Eberhardt. I didn't write it in my journal. I wasn't sure what it was yet.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Or maybe I was beginning to see what I wasn't supposed to. My thoughts had grown less linear since I returned. The dreams shaper. The hours between sunrise and sunset heavier. Even my handwriting had begun to change—more rigid, more deliberate, as if someone else were finishing my sentence when I wasn't looking.