Chapter 1The Boy Who Walked at Night
There are people who love the night because it hides them.
I loved it because it made everyone look honest.
During the day, the city belonged to people with somewhere to be. At night, the lists disappeared. The baker looked tired. The old woman in the third-floor window watered a plant. Taxi drivers leaned against their doors and watched the rain.
Nobody looked important.
Nobody looked complete.
My name is Elias. I was seventeen when I began spending my evenings outside.
I had no tragic reason for it. My parents were alive, my room was warm, and there was always food in the kitchen.
I was simply lonely.
There is a kind of loneliness that does not hurt enough to make you cry. It only makes ordinary days feel slightly transparent, as if everyone else is living behind glass.
So I walked.
On the night I met Mira, rain had been falling since afternoon.
I reached the railway station just before midnight. The last train had already gone.
That was when I noticed the girl sitting beneath the broken station clock.
She held a red umbrella and stared at the empty tracks as though she expected someone to return.
I should have kept walking.
Instead, I stopped.
