Normal returned slowly.
Not all at once—never that cleanly—but in pieces small enough that people could pretend it had always been there. Doors were closed again. Voices regained their usual volume. Laughter found its way back into rooms, hesitant at first, then practiced.
He was folded back into it.
At least, that's how it looked.
In the mornings, his mother spoke to him about the weather. His father asked whether he planned to work that day. The questions were ordinary, delivered with careful neutrality, like objects placed gently on a table already cracked.
He answered them.
Yes.
No.
Later.
No one pressed further.
He returned to routine tasks—helping where he used to help, walking paths he had walked since childhood. People greeted him the same way they always had, smiles familiar, voices steady.
But the timing was wrong.
A fraction of a second too late.
A fraction too careful.
When he passed through the market, conversations dipped—not stopping entirely, just thinning, like fabric worn soft from too much handling. Someone he'd known for years reached out to clap him on the shoulder, then hesitated, hand hovering awkwardly before dropping back to their side.
"Good to see you," the man said.
It sounded rehearsed.
He nodded and moved on.
Children stared at him openly. Not with fear—children didn't yet know what to be afraid of—but with the blunt curiosity reserved for things that didn't fit. One followed him for several steps before being called back sharply by a parent.
At home, meals resumed at the table.
His mother served his portion carefully, eyes flicking to his hands, his face, then away again. Once, when he reached for a cup, she flinched. She masked it immediately, busying herself with something else, but the motion stayed with him longer than it should have.
They spoke about small things.
The neighbor's fence.
A delayed shipment.
Someone getting married in the spring.
No one mentioned the grave.
No one mentioned the days he had been gone.
It was as if those moments had been agreed upon—silently—as forbidden territory. A place no one was willing to step back into.
Weeks passed.
The change was subtle enough that he almost missed it at first. The way his father's hair looked thinner in certain light. The way his mother moved a little more slowly when she thought no one was watching.
Someone he worked beside developed a cough that lingered longer than it should have. Another began to limp after a minor injury, the stiffness settling in permanently.
Time was doing what time always did.
He was not.
He caught his reflection one morning in a basin of water. The face looking back at him was exactly as it had been before the road by the river. The same lines. The same unmarked skin.
He looked rested.
Someone else noticed it too.
"You seem… better," a woman said one afternoon, eyes lingering on him longer than politeness allowed. "Like you've had a long sleep."
He thanked her.
She didn't look convinced.
Another time, a man laughed and said, "You don't age, do you?" The tone was light, joking. But his gaze stayed sharp, searching for a reaction.
He smiled faintly.
The man laughed louder, as if to cover something up, and changed the subject.
At night, he lay awake listening to the house breathe.
It had its own rhythms—wood settling, distant animals moving, the occasional cough from another room. Once, he heard his mother get up and walk to his door. Her steps stopped just short of it.
She didn't knock.
After a long moment, she returned to her room.
He didn't call out.
Days stacked on top of one another. The sense of being watched returned—not constantly, not intensely—but often enough to be felt. Eyes lingered a little too long. Questions repeated themselves in slightly altered forms.
"How are you sleeping?"
"Are you feeling tired?"
"You look the same as always."
Each observation landed softly, but together they formed a pattern.
One evening, as he washed his hands, he noticed something missing.
A scar.
It had been there since childhood—a thin, pale line along his knuckle from a careless fall. He remembered it because he'd been scolded for bleeding on the floor.
Now there was nothing.
Smooth skin. Unbroken.
He turned his hand over, examining it from different angles. The absence felt louder than pain ever had.
Later that night, someone asked him about it.
A small thing. Casual. Almost nothing.
"I thought you had a scar there," they said, pointing vaguely toward his hand. "From years ago."
He lowered his hand slowly.
"I don't remember that," he replied.
The words came easily.
Too easily.
The conversation moved on. But something had shifted.
He felt it settle into place with quiet certainty.
Normal was no longer something he could return to.
It was something he had to perform.
And performances required care.
After that, he became careful.
Not abruptly. Carefulness announced itself only in hindsight. In the way he paused before answering questions. In the way he kept his hands occupied when people were near, so no one could study them too closely. In the way he learned to look slightly tired, slightly worn, as if time had finally begun to reach him.
He began to make mistakes on purpose.
A missed step.
A wince held a moment too long.
A complaint about soreness that faded by morning.
Small performances. Harmless ones.
People relaxed when he did them.
Normal returned in fragments again, thinner this time, but passable. Conversations lengthened. Someone laughed without restraint. A child stopped staring.
Still, eyes followed him more often than before.
One afternoon, a man he'd known since boyhood walked beside him longer than usual. Their pace matched naturally, but the silence between them felt arranged.
"You've always been steady," the man said finally.
He waited.
"Even before all this," the man added. "Hard to knock you off balance."
"I suppose," he replied.
The man nodded slowly, gaze fixed ahead. "It's strange. Most people change when something like that happens."
The words were mild. The intent wasn't.
He did not answer immediately.
They walked another dozen steps before he spoke. "People change in different ways."
The man glanced at him, then away again. "Yes. I guess they do."
They parted without another word.
That night, he dreamed of mirrors.
Not reflections—those he avoided now—but rooms filled with glass, each surface showing him unchanged while everything around him aged, cracked, and crumbled. He woke before dawn, heart steady, the dream already fading.
By morning, a decision had settled into him.
He would lie.
Not loudly. Not recklessly. Just enough.
The opportunity came sooner than expected.
His mother asked him to help carry wood from the shed. As he lifted a heavy bundle, she watched closely, eyes narrowing slightly—not in fear, but in concentration.
"You don't feel it at all?" she asked.
The question landed softly, but it struck deeper than the others.
He set the wood down and flexed his fingers slowly, deliberately. He let his shoulders sag.
"My back's been bothering me," he said. "Since… before."
The pause was intentional.
She exhaled, relief loosening something in her posture. "That makes sense," she said quickly. Too quickly. "You should rest more."
He nodded.
The lie tasted dull. Not bitter. Not sweet.
Just empty.
After that, it became easier.
He complained about the cold. About fatigue. About headaches that never came. He rubbed his temples at the right moments. Sat down when others did. Yawned when conversation slowed.
No one questioned him anymore.
They accepted the version of him that fit.
What he lost was quieter.
He stopped telling the truth even when it didn't matter. He stopped correcting small misunderstandings. He let people speak for him, decide for him, shape him into something manageable.
Honesty became a risk he could no longer afford.
One evening, standing near the edge of the village, he watched lights flicker on in familiar windows. Lives unfolding in predictable patterns. Aging. Changing.
He was part of it.
But not really.
He realized then that staying meant watching this fracture widen. Each day would add another question, another glance held too long.
Normal would not last.
It never did.
That night, he packed a small bag.
Not everything. Just enough.
At dawn, before anyone else woke, he stepped outside and closed the door quietly behind him.
He did not look back.