You feel most alone not when nobody understands you, but when you begin to believe there may be no one else like you at all.
They walked in silence.
The city around them had grown quieter.
Not because of the late hour.
Because of the rain.
He noticed that after everything that had happened, he had begun hearing the city differently.
As if the noise was no longer a single thing.
It had layers now.
She suddenly turned into a narrow street he had never walked through before.
There were almost no people there.
Only old street lamps.
Wet stone.
And lights glowing behind windows where someone was still awake.
She spoke first:
You still think this is accidental?
He knew what she meant.
But he answered anyway:
I don’t know what this is.
She nodded slightly.
As if that was exactly the answer she expected.
Then she said:
It doesn’t begin in a single moment.
He looked at her.
She was staring ahead.
At the wet empty street.
And continued:
Most people notice it a few times in their lives. Then immediately forget.
He stayed silent.
Because suddenly he remembered his own moments.
Strange.
Brief.
The ones he had once dismissed as coincidence.
She said:
But sometimes someone refuses to look away.
He felt something tighten inside him.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Then he asked the question that had been sitting inside him for a long time:
How many of us are there?
For the first time that evening, she smiled.
Not warmly.
Almost sadly.
Then she answered:
More than you think.
A pause.
And fewer than there should be.
The street ahead seemed endless.
And for the first time, he felt not only fear.
But something else too.
Belonging.