Thirty years later, the sun rose without resistance.
It sat high in the sky, bright and unbroken, with no clouds daring enough to cross its path. Light poured down freely, washing the city in warmth. It was the kind of day that made people forget storms ever existed.
The city market was alive.
Voices overlapped—buyers calling out prices, sellers shouting back louder, laughter slipping through arguments like it always did. The air smelled of dust, ripe fruit, sweat, and something fried nearby. Coins clinked. Cloth rustled. Somewhere, a man was complaining that the price had gone up since yesterday, and the shopkeeper was swearing it hadn't.
Bargaining ruled everything here.
Nothing changed hands without words first.
In the middle of it all, a hand reached out.
An apple disappeared from a wooden crate.
The owner was turned away, busy scolding another customer, his attention elsewhere for just a second. That was enough. The apple was already gone, tucked casually into a palm, lifted without haste.
The man didn't run.
He didn't even look back.
He took a bite as he walked, teeth sinking into the fruit with a quiet crunch. Juice slipped down his fingers, but he didn't slow. The crowd parted and closed around him naturally, as if he belonged there—as if nothing unusual had happened at all.
He moved easily.
A white shirt clung lightly to him, the first three buttons undone, the fabric creased from use rather than care. Blue trousers sat low and loose, worn but clean. His hair was long, falling past his neck, unbothered by the wind or the stares. His eyes were dark—black, steady, unreadable—glancing ahead, never lingering.
No guilt.
No urgency.
Just motion.
People brushed past him. A shoulder clipped his arm. Someone cursed under their breath. He didn't react. He kept walking, chewing slowly, as if the noise and chaos were distant things, happening somewhere else.
For now, everything was normal.
The market continued to breathe.
The sun continued to shine.
And the man disappeared into the crowd, leaving behind nothing but a missing apple and a moment no one noticed.
The man who thought he had gone unnoticed hadn't.
A short distance behind him, another figure moved with care.
He wore black beneath a long blue coat, the fabric hanging stiff and straight, its sleeves ending just below the elbows. Every button of the shirt underneath was fastened, tight and precise, as if looseness itself was a risk. A hat sat low on his head, casting a shadow that kept his face out of reach.
He didn't follow closely.
He didn't rush.
Instead, he matched the rhythm of the crowd, slowing when it slowed, stopping when it stopped—always there, never obvious.
In his hands was a newspaper.
He held it open casually, as if killing time, as if waiting for someone. A small tear had been made in the paper, no larger than necessary. One eye lingered behind it, steady and unblinking, fixed on the man ahead.
He had been watching him for a while now.
The newspaper itself was filled edge to edge with the same story. Thick ink. Bold letters. A headline that demanded attention.
"Legendary Traveller of History! Alive or Dead??!"
The article spoke of an old tale dragged back into the present—of a traveller who had vanished long ago, of a wooden box filled with gold beyond counting, of a body never found. It claimed the impossible: that the traveller was still alive, moving quietly among ordinary people, hidden in plain sight.
Rumours followed the words like shadows.
Whispers of a hunt.
Not for treasure—but for a corpse.
Every corner of the city was talking about it.
Yet the man reading the newspaper never saw the headline.
The page he was holding faced the other side. Columns of dull print. Unimportant news. Nothing that mattered. Not today.
And it wasn't carelessness.
His attention was elsewhere. His peace was already fragile, stretched thin by the single figure walking ahead of him. Missing the story—whether fortunate or unfortunate—meant nothing.
Right now, survival demanded focus.
The crowd surged again, swallowing both men in movement and noise. The first continued forward without knowing. The second followed, silent, patient, eyes sharp behind torn paper.
History, it seemed, was closer than anyone realised.
The apple the man was eating had finished down to its core.
The man turned it in his fingers, sticky and useless now, and slowed his walk. The market noise pressed in on him—voices overlapping, metal clinking, a cart wheel screeching somewhere to his left. He scanned the street lazily, as if looking for a bin, or a gutter, or anywhere his hand could be rid of it.
As he walked, he glanced back.
Just once.
A newspaper stood out among the moving bodies. Too still. Too upright. And for a fraction of a second—no more than the blink of an eye—something dark looked back at him through a rough tear in the page.
The man's steps faltered.
He turned forward again, heart striking his ribs once, hard. The apple core slipped from his fingers and hit the ground, forgotten.
He ran.
The crowd hadn't opened for him. He forced his way through it, shoulder first, breath tearing from his chest as he shouted, "Move! Get out of my way!" People spun, cursed, stumbled as he shoved past them, knocking baskets and arms aside without looking back.
Behind him, the newspaper folded once. Neatly. It disappeared into the left pocket of a long blue coat.
The man following stepped forward.
He didn't shout. He didn't push.
He adjusted his pace instead.
Where bodies clogged the street, he angled his shoulders. Where someone stopped short, he slipped around them. His feet struck the ground lightly, finding gaps before they fully opened, closing them again just as fast.
The runner looked back again—long enough to see that the distance between them had not grown.
His chest tightened.
He knocked a wooden crate with his foot. It tipped, burst open, apples rolling everywhere. He vaulted it clumsily, nearly slipping.
In a quick moment, he stretched down to pick one up. Not to eat. But for something else.
Behind him, the man shortened his stride, stepped onto the crate, and off again—never breaking rhythm.
The runner slammed into someone, sending them stumbling sideways. He didn't stop. He couldn't.
A hand caught the falling stranger, steadying them, and let go.
Still coming.
The runner's breath burned. Sweat blurred his vision. He flung the apple from his hand, over his shoulder. It sailed wide. The man behind shifted his head an inch and passed beneath it.
Closer now.
A shadow stretched across the ground beside him. Fingers brushed cloth—
He turned sharply left, nearly crashing into the wall of a building. The sudden change bought him a moment. Just one.
He took it.
The bar door flew open under his weight, and he disappeared inside.
Outside, the chaser stopped.
He smoothed the front of his coat, brushed dust from the sleeve, and adjusted the way it sat on his shoulders. His breathing was steady when he finally let it out.
"The rat," he said, softly, to no one in particular,
"is finally trapped."
He stayed bent for a few seconds after the chase, palms resting on his knees, breathing through his mouth while the market noise carried on as if nothing had happened. A bead of sweat slid from his temple down to his jaw before falling onto the wooden step below him. Chasing through a crowded street was far less graceful than it looked from a distance.
"Chasing is not… easy," he muttered quietly to himself, more in complaint than pride.
When his breathing finally steadied, he straightened and looked at the bar door ahead of him. His sleeves were still rolled from the run. He took his time pulling them down, smoothing the creases along his forearms as though restoring order to himself before stepping inside. He fastened the buttons neatly and adjusted the collar of his shirt. Then he lifted a hand to his hat, tilting it slightly until it sat properly again.
The bar stood just above street level, reached by a short set of worn wooden steps. He climbed them slowly this time, no longer in pursuit but in preparation. The sounds from inside drifted through the door — low conversation, the faint clink of glass against wood, the dull scrape of a chair being moved.
He had never entered a place like this before.
Though nineteen, and legally old enough to do so, he had always avoided such establishments. The thought of stepping into that kind of place had always felt unnecessary.
Now it was unavoidable.
He placed his palm against the warm wooden slats of the swinging saloon door and gave it a careful push, the panels parting inward with a low, reluctant creak.
Sunlight from outside stretched briefly across the floor before being swallowed by the dim interior. The air inside was warmer, heavier, carrying the smell of old wood and drink. A few heads turned at the sound of the door.
Near the wall, two men sat with cards spread before them, though neither seemed particularly focused on the game. At the counter, someone paused mid-sip and glanced over his shoulder.
And at a table positioned slightly apart from the others sat a man whose posture did not match the room.
He was not slouched or relaxed like the rest. His back was straight. His coat was clean despite the dust of the city outside. A glass rested untouched near his hand. Two men stood a short distance behind him, not interfering, not speaking, yet watching the room with quiet attention.
The atmosphere had not changed completely — conversations still murmured, chairs still creaked — but there was a certain carefulness in the air that did not belong to an ordinary afternoon drink.
The chaser stepped inside and let the door close behind him.
For the first time since the chase began, he was no longer the only one hunting.