He was walking in her direction.

Aurora remained frozen, a statue in the stream of pedestrians. She couldn't breathe. The crowd on her sidewalk came to life, flowing around her, as people from the other side moved to cross. He was among them.

Ten meters. Five. Three.

He was getting closer. Each step was a blow against her ribs. The cold autumn wind whipped her hair across her face, but she didn't feel it. Her entire universe was compressed into the rhythmic tap of his expensive dress shoes on the asphalt.

Now, she thought, a desperate prayer forming in her mind. He’ll see me up close. He’ll stop. The distance blurred his vision, that’s all. He’ll see me now, and his eyes will widen, and he’ll say my name.

He walked past her.

He passed so close she could smell a faint, unfamiliar scent of expensive cologne mixed with the sharp crispness of the cold air. It wasn't the smell of woodsmoke and old film developer she associated with him. It was the scent of a stranger.

He passed within half a meter, his gaze focused forward, not even glancing at her, completely absorbed in his own thoughts. He didn't flinch. He didn't pause. He walked past her as if she were a lamppost, a utility box, a void in the space.

Slowly, as if moving through invisible molasses, Aurora turned to watch him go.

He was walking away. The ghost, made flesh and blood, was simply walking away down her side of the street, putting distance between them with every confident stride. She had lost him again. Panic, sharp and cold, pierced her numbness.

He's alive. He walked past me. He didn't recognize me.

She opened her mouth to shout his name, to run after him and grab his arm, but a dry, thorny knot blocked her throat. Her voice had died in the crash of her expectations.

And at that moment, she saw her.

A tall, elegant woman in a light cashmere coat had been waiting by a shop window a few steps from the crosswalk. As Alex approached, she pushed off the wall, smiled, and moved toward him.

Alex immediately walked over to her, and his face... God, his face transformed.

The cold, detached mask of the busy stranger he’d worn while crossing the street vanished instantly. In its place was that familiar, tender, slightly indulgent smile that Aurora had only seen in her dreams for five years. The smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. The smile that had once been reserved only for her.

A memory struck her, mercilessly—that same smile when he’d met her at the airport, back from a solo trip to Karelia, a week before that final, fatal climb. He had been tired, unshaven, smelling of train compartments, but looking at her as if she were the only anchor in his chaotic world. "Finally," he had whispered then. "I'm home."

Now, he was looking at this stranger with that same expression.

He said something to the blonde woman, and she threw her head back and laughed—a bright, happy sound that mingled with the city noise. Then he took her hand in his. Not just took it—their fingers interlaced, familiar and natural, palm to palm. It was the unconscious, automatic gesture of a man who had done this a hundred times before.

That gesture was more terrifying than his empty gaze on the street.

The empty gaze meant he didn't remember her. This gesture meant he had replaced her.

The world, which had just cracked, now shattered into a million sharp fragments. He wasn't just alive. He was happy. He was walking down a sunlit street, holding another woman's hand, his eyes shining with the warmth that had once belonged only to Aurora.

Her entire five-year mourning, her fidelity, her life in a mausoleum of memories, the nights spent talking to his photograph—it all suddenly seemed like an ugly, meaningless joke. She was a widow to a man who wasn't dead.

Aurora's feet began to move on their own. She wasn't thinking. She wasn't deciding. Her body simply obeyed the only, primal instinct left to her: do not lose sight of him.

They were walking ahead of her, on the same sidewalk. Aurora, her head down, pulling her collar up to hide her face, began to follow.

She kept her distance, hiding behind other pedestrians, feeling like an invisible ghost spying on someone else's bright, full life. The city around her seemed to have changed. It was no longer her city—the city of quiet parks and old bookshops. It was theirs. The shop windows glittered with luxury she couldn't afford; new glass buildings reflected the cold, indifferent sky. This sharp, modern, successful world was their habitat. And she, in her old coat that smelled of turpentine and dust, was an alien here. A smudge from the past that someone had forgotten to wipe away.

They walked for a block, then another, chatting animatedly. He inclined his head toward the woman, listening intently to whatever she was saying. She was telling him something, gesturing with her free hand, vibrant and alive.

A perfect couple. Successful, beautiful, confident. They were cut from a different world, from the pages of a glossy magazine where there was no room for Aurora and her broken heart.

Her heart hammered a dry, painful beat against her ribs. How could you, Alex? The thought screamed in her mind. How could you build all this... without me? You didn't even... She cut the thought short. He was dead. To her, he had been dead. And for him? Obviously, she was the one who had died. Or worse—she had never existed.

They turned a corner, and Aurora quickened her pace, almost breaking into a run, terrified they would enter a residential building and vanish behind a locked door forever.

But they didn't stop at an apartment. They stopped at the entrance of a massive, modern office building, all gleaming glass and steel. It was one of those soulless new structures that had sprouted up in the city center while she was hiding in her attic, counting the days of her grief.

Alex stepped forward and held the heavy glass door open for the woman. Before walking in, she turned to him. She placed a hand on his chest, said something that made him smile again, and gave him a quick kiss. It wasn't a passionate, movie-star kiss. It was a light, casual, domestic peck that spoke of complete trust, intimacy, and a shared life.

They went inside and disappeared into the bright, sun-filled lobby, swallowed by the golden light of the interior.

Aurora stopped on the same sidewalk, a few dozen meters from the entrance. People flowed around her like water around a stone.

It was over. She had lost him again. He had vanished behind the glass, into his new, alien life, leaving her on the cold sidewalk.

She stood, unable to move, trembling from the adrenaline crash. The tears she hadn't shed five years ago, the ones that had dried up into a desert of numbness, finally broke free. They streamed down her cheeks, hot and stinging, mixing with the grime of the autumn city.

She stared at the building that had swallowed her love, trying to memorize every detail through the blur of her weeping. Cold. Arrogant. Foreign.

And then her gaze, unfocused from the tears, latched onto the only thing that mattered. The only thing that offered a thread to follow into the labyrinth.

Above the entrance, over the revolving doors, large steel letters spelled out the name. One word that meant everything and nothing. Her only clue in this collapsed world.

"HORIZON."