Dawn filtered through a sky that looked too perfect—painted rather than born. Kael felt it the mont his eyes opened: the world was off. Not broken, not shattered—just… rewritten.
Eira and Jorah walked ahead on the narrow forest path, talking quietly about sothing Kael should have known, sothing he should have been part of—but their voices carried no space for him. Not intentionally. More like the world itself refused to carve him in.
Eira paused first.
"Strange," she murmured, fingertips brushing the bark of a crooked oak. "I've passed this place a hundred tis. But it feels like the first."
Jorah snorted. "Everything feels like the first to you. Last week you forgot my birthday."
She shot him a glare. "You don't have a birthday. You made it up because you wanted free food."
Kael should have laughed. He didn't. The humor slid past him, quiet and distant, as if cushioned by glass.
They weren't ignoring him—they simply didn't look his way.
Even when he stepped closer, even when he cleared his throat.
It wasn't until Eira nearly walked into him that she blinked and startled.
"Oh—Kael. Sorry, I didn't see you."
A simple sentence.
But the way she said it—softly unnerved—made sothing cold settle in his spine.
"You've been walking beside the whole ti," Kael said quietly.
Jorah frowned. "Have you? I swear I thought you were behind us."
"I was." Kael's voice was firr this ti. "And then I was beside you."
Jorah scratched the back of his neck. "Huh. Must be this weird air. My sense of direction's acting drunk."
Eira lingered on Kael a mont longer than usual, her eyes narrowing as though trying to pull a mory from beneath ice. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
There it was.
The first warning.
The first tear in reality's fabric.
Kael forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just… thinking."
Even that landed wrong. Like she expected sothing else from him—sothing she couldn't articulate.
They walked again, deeper into the village outskirts.
And that's when the world started rembering wrong.
The first villager they t—an elderly woman Kael had spoken to countless tis—greeted Eira warmly, teased Jorah about his terrible aim, then looked right at Kael…
…with polite confusion.
"Oh. A traveler? You look pale, child. Co in if you need soup."
Kael's throat tightened. Eira stepped forward, puzzled.
"Kael isn't—he's not—" she paused, blinking hard. "I an, he's with us."
"With you?" the woman asked kindly. "Well, I suppose everyone needs friends."
Not "Good to see you again, Kael."
Not even "Who are you?"
Just a stranger's courtesy.
Eira hesitated, a hand hovering near her chest as if sothing hurt. She looked back at Kael—truly looked—and her brows drew together as though she sensed sothing important was missing… but couldn't na it.
Jorah whispered under his breath, "Okay, that was creepy even for old woman Brina."
But things only worsened.
Every person Kael once knew walked past him like he was air.
The blacksmith's apprentice, who Kael once saved from a collapsing forge, glanced over the group, nodded at Eira and Jorah, then stared at Kael with the blankness of eting a stranger in a crowd.
In the market, vendors gave Jorah extra food they "owed him," hugged Eira, praised her work—
But Kael?
Nothing.
No recognition.
No mory.
No na for him in their minds.
Reality had smoothed him out like an erased pencil line.
Eira's discomfort grew every ti her gaze slid across him. She kept stealing small looks now—frowning, confused, almost worried. She didn't say anything, but her body stayed closer to him, like instinct clung to what mory had abandoned.
Jorah eventually snapped.
"Oh co on!" he barked at a rchant. "You know him! Tall, annoying, looks like he's carrying the weight of sixty prophecies?"
The rchant blinked. "You an you two? I've never seen this third one before."
Jorah's jaw dropped. "WHAT—"
"Jorah," Eira murmured sharply.
Her voice was tight. Too tight.
She turned to Kael, stepping close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. "Sothing is wrong. Very, very wrong. I don't understand it but… every ti I look at you it feels like I… I'm supposed to rember sothing."
Her brows knit together.
"Sothing important."
Kael breathed out slowly. "It's not your fault."
Eira's eyes snapped to him, the frustration clear. "But it feels like it is."
Jorah jerked a thumb toward the village edge. "We should head to your old ho. See if it's still… yours."
Kael nodded stiffly.
He wasn't prepared for what waited there.
The house was intact—sa cracked stones, sa warped wooden steps.
But the door opened before they reached it.
A woman Kael had never seen stepped out, wiping flour from her hands. She looked young, kind, peaceful.
And behind her—
A boy ran out. Twelve. Laughing. Dark hair. Dark eyes.
Kael's heart plumted.
He knew that face.
A replacent version of himself.
"Careful!" the woman scolded lightly. "Your father will scold you if you ruin your boots again."
The boy grinned. "But I didn't! Not yet!"
Jorah whispered, "Kael… is that—"
Kael couldn't speak.
The mother noticed them then and smiled warmly. "Oh, travelers. Are you lost?"
Eira inhaled sharply as she subtly compared the boy's face to Kael's.
Jorah took a half step back, eyes wide.
Kael stood frozen, the world tilting around him.
He felt Eira's hand brush his—not grabbing, not holding, but trembling close enough to say I'm here. I'm trying to rember you.
The woman waited politely.
Kael finally managed four words:
"That… used to be ."
And the world felt it—
the lie it was trying to bury,
the truth it failed to overwrite.
The air rippled.
And from the far corner of the street—
a shadowy figure watched Kael from behind a lamppost.
Unmoving.
Silent.
Too still to be human.
Kael stepped forward—
But the figure vanished the mont he blinked.
A chill crawled up his spine.
Sothing, sowhere, rembered him.
Sothing the world was trying very hard to hide.
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