Ti passed, but it didn't move.
The hours folded into each other. Mornings bled into dusk without shape. I ate when the halls emptied. Slept when the light failed. I spoke only when I had to.
I returned to my routines, but they didn't return to . My body sat through lectures. My hand took notes I never read. I smiled when I was expected to and answered when I was addressed. But the words had no texture. They slid past like steam on glass.
Sothing essential had been left behind in Weißer Hirsch. I could still feel the wind in the orchard. Still see the way Clara turned her head before she looked at . The way the silence between us had held more weight than words.
Now that silence had followed back. And it was no longer gentle.
Clara had vanished. Not in the literal sense—she still existed, I was sure. But sothing—or soone—was keeping her from . Holding her at a distance I couldn't cross.
It wasn't logical. It wasn't evidence-based. But it pressed at the edge of my thoughts like pressure building in a sealed room.
I couldn't explain it. But I could feel it.
***
It started small.
A note I left for myself vanished from my desk drawer—a quote from a lecture I didn't want to forget. At first I thought I had misplaced it, or thrown it out by accident. Then, a journal page—torn and crumpled—appeared in my coat pocket, though I didn't rember putting it there. The ink was sared. The date didn't make sense.
One morning, I found the tram schedule in my bag rewritten. The tis I had circled were gone, replaced with tiny notches in the margin I hadn't made. As if soone had corrected .
I told myself it was fatigue. I was distracted. Unwell.
Then I found the photograph.
I didn't know where it ca from. Folded neatly inside of my philosophy textbook, tucked between Kant and Kierkegaard like it had been waiting for . A black and white print of a hillside chapel. Familiar. Faded. The image was soft at the edges, as though printed from an older negative. The kind you don't rember taking, but can't forget.
Clara was in the corner of the fra. Barely visible. Her profile turned, one hand raised as if waving to soone off-cara. Blurred, as if she moved mid-shot. But it was her. I didn't need clarity to know.
I turned the photo over. There was nothing written—no na, no date, no location. Just blank card stock. But the paper slled faintly of pine.
Like the forest she had walked through.
Like the place I had left her.
***
That evening, I walked the streets of Charlottenburg without direction. I passed cafes I used to sit in, shops I used to browse, parks that had once been quiet places of thought. But now everything felt artificial. The city moved with too much precision, as though soone had wound it too tightly.
The lamps humd too evenly. The cobblestones were too clean. Every voice I heard from the street corners sounded rehearsed. Like the city had beco a stage, and I was the only one who hadn't been given a script.
I didn't go to the clinic. I didn't go to Eberhardt. I didn't want her voice in my head.
I went ho.
The door to my apartnt stuck slightly before opening—a fraction of resistance I hadn't felt before. Nothing was disturbed, but I checked anyway. The drawer. The wardrobe. The windows.
Everything was in its place.
Still, I locked the door twice behind .
I opened my journal.
What do you rember?
The words hadn't shifted, but sothing beneath them felt different. Like pressure. Like silence waiting to beco sound.
Beneath it:
You looked at like you rembered.
I stared at the page for a long ti before writing the next line.
Soone is trying to erase her.
The ink bled slightly, as if the paper resisted it.
I closed the journal slowly.
And placed it under my pillow.
***
That night, I dreamt of a corridor.
It stretched far beyond the reach of the candle in my hand—stone floor, smooth walls, and clocks. Dozens of them. Hung in uneven rows, ticking at mismatched intervals. So too fast. Others slow, as if ti inside them had bronze mid-thought. A few had shattered faces, their hands dangling uselessly.
And in the middle of the hallway stood a figure.
Not Clara. Not Eberhardt.
A man—taller than , his posture upright and heavy, like soone who carried sothing far older than his fra. His face was hidden in shadow. His coat moved slightly, but there was no breeze.
He didn't speak with his mouth. But I heard sothing. Not a word, not a sentence. Just a pressure, like the space between monts had pushed forward to greet .
When I tried to step closer, the ground underfoot gave a soft echo—as if I had stepped into mory.
He lifted one hand slowly.
And pointed behind .
I turned, but the corridor was empty.
I looked back.
He was gone.
But the clocks continued ticking—out of rhythm, louder, then softer, then not at all.
I woke before the hour could strike.
My hand was still on the journal.
And the window was open.
I hadn't opened it.
The scent of pine drifted in like a whisper I couldn't catch.
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