When you first meet someone who sees more than you do, the most frightening thing is not fear. It is realizing the scale of everything you still cannot see.
She never explained where they were going.
And he no longer asked.
After everything that had happened, a strange kind of trust had formed inside him.
Not blind trust.
Quiet trust.
They walked for a long time through narrow rain-soaked streets.
The city grew older.
Darker.
As if they were slowly leaving not a district behind.
But time itself.
He noticed there were almost no cars anymore.
Only rain.
And the sound of their footsteps.
Finally, she stopped beside an old building without a sign.
No names.
No lights in the windows.
Only a narrow dark wooden door.
She said:
Before you walk in, decide whether you truly want to know more.
He smiled faintly.
Tiredly.
After the last few weeks, the question almost sounded ridiculous.
But something in her voice made him stop.
Not the words.
The weight behind them.
As if something would change permanently once he crossed that door.
He asked:
And if I don’t?
She looked at him longer than usual.
And for the first time since he had met her, there was something in her expression that resembled sympathy.
Almost invisible.
Then she answered:
Then you still have a chance to return to a normal life.
He stayed silent.
Because suddenly he realized:
she wasn’t sure she would have wanted to know all of this from the beginning either.
Rain slowly ran down the dark wood of the door.
The city behind them felt impossibly far away.
Like another life.
He stepped forward.
And pressed the handle.