Step by step

 

, a dark, slender figure, leaning slightly forward, traversed the streets and intersections. Personally, it didn't matter to her how many intersections and streets she passed, for it seemed to her that time was slowing down, or even standing still.

Another street, another house. To Adam, they looked identical. They made no impression on him. His gaze was empty, lifeless. He was lost in his own memories of the past, because for the past seven days, everything around him had seemed far away. Every day, he traveled the same route twice, connecting the house of his past with the house of his empty present.

It was well after midnight when, as he slipped the key in the lock of his apartment door, a spark of hope appeared in his lifeless eyes. He pushed the door harder, and with each passing moment, his heart beat faster. When the doorknob of the opening door struck the wall, his knees buckled, and he thudded it limply against the floor with the weight of his body. He tried to utter even the slightest sound, but his voice couldn't penetrate the feeling tightening in his throat.

"Isn't that possible!?"

His thoughts swirled at breakneck speed, and though he couldn't utter a single sound, he felt as if he could hear his own thoughts.

He had no idea how long he'd been kneeling in front of his own apartment door, but all that time he'd been trying to do something, trying to stand up, trying to force words out, let alone a complete sentence. Only fragments of memories from the past were clear, reminding him that what had just happened was irrational and impossible.

Time seemed to have reversed.

"Was it a dream? I just got back, just a moment ago I was touching the letters carved in marble." Adam couldn't believe it; he felt strange, confused, betrayed, disappointed, lost.

Throughout that entire period of his life, he had considered himself inferior, telling himself he was something undeserving of life. He was afraid. With all his thirty-year-old heart, he was afraid to look in the mirror.

His eyes, which now seemed to be asking countless questions, were fixed on memories. The world around him seemed like a dream, and Adam recalled the day his soul had died.

"Dad! Dad! Please hurry, we promised we wouldn't be late." A little boy with raven-black hair and a sweet, childish smile looked toward his father. He shifted impatiently, urging his father on every few steps.

"Kamilk, we still have half an hour. Don't you think we have more than enough time to get through just one intersection?"

"But Dad! Bartek promised me he'd show me something else before his birthday. He told me it was something he'd never seen before and that it was totally cool."

"Okay, fine. Just wait, I'll close the door."

It was already noon when the father and his six-year-old son, hand in hand, were walking through the street of their neighborhood. The boy was happily jumping and laughing, but he had never been without his father's hand on their walks together.

This time, however, something strange happened. Suddenly, Kamil stopped. The father looked at his son strangely. But he just stood there and watched.

"I understand," the boy replied to himself.

"Kamil, what about you?" The father came up behind the boy, crouched down, and looked him straight in the eyes. But his eyes seemed empty, as if they were staring somewhere beyond the real world they were in.

"Son?" Grabbing his shoulder, he began to shake him gently, hoping his son would wake up.

Only a few seconds passed, and the boy, as if nothing had happened, took his father's hand.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I just remembered something.

" "But...

" "It's really nothing, I'm sorry." – The father gave up, although he thought there was something strange about his son's behavior.

Only a few minutes had passed and they were both standing in front of Bartek's house. Just as they were opening the gate leading to the property, a boy about Kamil's age ran out of the house.

"Come on! Come with me, quickly! I want to show you.

" "Okay, I'm going, I have something important to tell you." The boys set off toward the treehouse, laughing merrily.

As they approached the tree, a wooden ladder nailed to its trunk, Kamil turned to his father. His strange look evoked a strange feeling in Adam.