He had always loved her, though he never said it. She was an idea, a presence that lingered just beyond reach, more dream than person. He would catch glimpses of her in the crowd, in the reflection of a passing window, in the laughter that echoed in his mind. She was someone he never fully knew, and yet someone who lived so deeply in him, like an unanswered question he had always carried.
He lived in these moments – treasured them in ways that kept him suspended, as if his entire existence hinged on them. He built a life around her—the shape of her smile, the sound of her voice, the softness of her touch—constructing her from the fragments of his own longing, his own need for something more.
But the years passed, and the world moved on, leaving him behind, standing still, unable to let go. He couldn’t forget her. He couldn’t stop chasing the ghost of something he never had. The woman who had once felt like she could be everything to him—if only they had dared to step into something more.
One day, he walked through an unfamiliar part of the city, his feet moving with a will of their own. The fog clung to the streets, softening the world, making it feel like a half-remembered dream. The streetlights were weak, their light struggling to cut through the darkness. It felt like the city was holding its breath.
And then, he saw her.
She stood in a shop window, her figure illuminated by a cold, flickering light. It was her, but not quite. Her face, once alive with warmth, was pale and unreadable.
Her eyes, once full of promise, were hollow—voids where memories went to die. His heart began to race, and for the first time in years, he felt alive—alive with the hope that maybe, just maybe, she was real, that the moments he had built around her weren’t just fantasies.
He stepped closer, his breath shallow, his legs trembling as he reached for the door of the shop. But when he pulled the handle, it wouldn’t budge.
And then she vanished. She couldn’t be gone again. He turned, stepping back into the street, but when he looked at the shop again, it was gone. The window, the light, the figure of the woman—all of it had disappeared.
The street was empty now, the fog rolling in thicker, swallowing everything around him. He stood there, his breath visible in the cold air, his thoughts tangled in a web of confusion and longing.
Had he imagined it? Was it all just a trick of the light, a figment of his own imagination?
He didn’t know, but as he walked back through the city, a strange feeling gnawed at him. It was as though everything he had built—everything he had believed in—was slipping through his fingers. The moments with her, the love he had carried in silence, all of it felt like it was fading away. He reached for it, tried to hold onto it, but it was already gone.
Later that night, as he sat alone in his apartment, the silence pressing in on him, he saw something on the table in front of him. A small hairpin. Silver and simple, like something he had seen before. He picked it up, turning it over in his fingers, but it didn’t feel familiar.
It wasn’t his. It wasn’t hers.
He felt a strange sense of recognition, though. The air around him grew thick, as if the room itself was breathing, shifting. His mind spun, his thoughts fracturing into pieces. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t place it.
And then the door creaked open.
He looked up, expecting nothing but the darkness of the empty apartment. But there, standing in the doorway, was a man in an old bucket hat. His features were strange—sharp, angular, with deep lines etched into his face. His eyes were too bright, like they could see everything, like they were older than the world itself.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, his voice gravelly, distant. “Didn’t mean to startle you. But it’s about time you knew.”
The man stepped forward, his movements slow, deliberate. He didn’t seem to belong there, not in the way the room did. His presence felt out of place, like an artifact in a forgotten museum.
“What—who are you?”
The words felt wrong coming out of his mouth, as though they weren’t his to speak. The man smiled—a strange, knowing smile. “Who I am isn’t important. What matters is that you’re finally seeing it. You’ve been chasing something, haven’t you? Her. The woman. “
The words felt like a slap, even though there was no malice in it—just an overwhelming sense of truth that he couldn’t escape.
“Why did I see her? Why… why did she vanish? Was she chasing me too?”
“She was never really there,” he said quietly. “She was part of you. A piece of you that you couldn’t let go of. And in chasing her, you’ve been chasing your own memory. A memory that wasn’t even yours.”
The hairpin in his hand felt heavier suddenly, as though it had taken on a life of its own. The man’s eyes glimmered with something beyond human comprehension.
“You think the world works in the way you see it. You think it’s all about time and choices and fate. But it isn’t. You’re just another part of a moment, just another echo in the vastness.”
“Truth is, you are a Mirage,” the man whispered, his voice reverberating in the space. “Sure it felt like years but you are a fleeting thought. An impression of what could’ve been. And you, just like her, are nothing but a passing moment. A memory in someone else’s dream.”
He tried to speak, but the words died in his throat. His chest tightened as if the air itself was suffocating him. The man smiled again, the smile of someone who had seen too much. “You’re not the one who’s been chasing her.
You’ve been the one being chased all along… you are being chased by Time because you’re a Mirage in a moment in time that’s slipping away. Time supposed to reclaim you, but I stepped in because you’re almost slipping away. Now, you have to go.”
And then, with a sudden, overwhelming clarity, it hit him. He finally understood.
There had never been any “him.”
Everything he had thought he was, had been nothing but the fading outline of someone else’s forgotten thought. He had never existed in the way he had imagined, and now, he accepted that he was nothing but the echo of what could have been.
And as the man faded into the cracks of oblivion, leaving only a hint of something that felt wrong in the air, he looked down at the hairpin one last time. Everything he had chased, everything he had believed in, was gone. And before he vanished, he wondered—
Was there ever anything real to begin with?
