Cael.

His name was Kael. A name as warm as the summer you once shared.

You lived your whole life with him: school years, hide-and-seek in the woods, first confessions, laughter at the family table. Then - a wedding, a house, and a little daughter with his eyes. Everything was simple and real.

and then just two years passed and he was gone.

An accident. They said he fell off a cliff while meditating. It was as if he simply tripped and everything ended.

You gave your daughter to her parents. Not because you didn't love her, but because you couldn't breathe. The nights dragged on endlessly. You didn't sleep, you didn't eat, you just lay there, listening to the emptiness.

On the third day, images began to appear. First in the corners of the room, then closer. Too vivid to be a dream.

That night you went out onto the balcony. The tea got cold in your hands.

• You're not sleeping again.

voice.

you turned around.

Kael stood at the door. The same—and yet completely different. A thick blindfold over his eyes.

• Why are you wearing a blindfold?

he bowed his head slightly.

— because I saw too much in heaven.

my heart skipped a beat.

— Are you… alive? or dead?

He chuckled softly, and there was no life in the sound.

• When you die, nothing should hurt. But I died... why does it hurt so much?

a pause fell between you, heavy as night.

— as it turns out... life is shitty in the afterlife.

and for the first time I became afraid not for him, but for the fact that he had returned. For what?