Cael woke before dawn to the familiar sound of rain tapping against the apartment window.
For a few moments, he lay still beneath the blanket and listened. The rain in Ash District never sounded hurried. It fell with a strange patience, as though it had all the time in the world. Most residents stopped noticing it after a few years. It became part of daily life, like rust on old railings or the faint smell of damp concrete that lingered in every building.
Some people even found it comforting.
Cael usually did.
Today was different.
Fragments of last night's dream still lingered at the edge of his thoughts. Whenever he tried to focus on them, they slipped away like water through his fingers, leaving behind only scattered impressions. A tram frozen in time. Rain hanging motionless in the air. A man wearing a gray coat. And beneath everything else, countless whispers speaking in voices he could no longer remember.
The details were gone.
The unease remained.
He sat up slowly and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before glancing toward the wooden table beside the bed.
The black card rested exactly where he had left it.
Morning light filtered through the curtains and fell across its smooth surface, yet the object looked no different than it had the night before. No hidden symbols had appeared. No message revealed itself. It remained a simple black rectangle, plain enough to be mistaken for a discarded membership card.
And somehow that was the most unsettling part.
People capable of freezing an entire tram did not hand out meaningless objects.
After a few minutes, Cael climbed out of bed and crossed the apartment. The floorboards creaked softly beneath his feet. The apartment itself was small even by Ash District standards, consisting of a single room, a narrow bathroom, and a kitchen barely large enough for one person to stand inside comfortably. Most of the furniture had been purchased secondhand over the years. The wallpaper was peeling near the corners, and an old water stain stretched across part of the ceiling where a leak had once survived three separate repair attempts.
The place wasn't impressive.
But it was his.
More importantly, it was quiet.
Cael picked up the card.
Cold immediately spread through his fingers.
His brow furrowed.
The sensation wasn't shocking anymore. It was simply strange. The card felt as though it had spent the entire night buried beneath winter snow. Even after holding it for several seconds, the temperature didn't change.
He turned it over once more.
Nothing.
No markings.
No clues.
No answers.
With a sigh, he set it back on the table.
"You're not very helpful."
The card remained as silent as ever.
A knock sounded from the hallway.
Three slow taps.
Cael frowned.
Nobody visited him.
The knock came again.
Setting aside his curiosity for later, he crossed the room and opened the door.
Mrs. Renn stood outside carrying her usual woven basket.
She lived in Apartment 312 on the third floor and had occupied it for so many years that nobody in the building seemed entirely certain when she first moved in. The elderly woman was short and thin, with silver hair that she stubbornly refused to cut. Every resident knew her. Most liked her. A few suspected she secretly knew everything that happened inside the building.
"Morning, dear," she said with a tired smile.
"Morning."
For a second, nothing happened.
Then something changed.
The smile faded.
Mrs. Renn's eyes widened slightly.
The expression that appeared on her face wasn't simple surprise. It was recognition. Deep recognition. The kind people showed when seeing someone they never expected to meet again.
"You came back."
Cael felt his stomach tighten.
The exact same reaction.
The old woman on the tram had looked at him that way.
Now Mrs. Renn was doing the same.
"What?"
The elderly woman's lips trembled.
"You finally came back..."
The words were little more than a whisper.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Mrs. Renn blinked.
The emotion vanished.
Confusion replaced it.
"What was I talking about?"
Cael studied her face.
The old woman genuinely looked puzzled.
"You tell me."
A faint blush appeared on her cheeks.
"Oh dear."
She laughed awkwardly and shook her head.
"My memory must be getting worse."
The explanation felt inadequate.
Both of them seemed to know it.
Fortunately, she quickly changed the subject.
"The pipe under my sink is leaking again."
Cael stared at her for another moment before giving up.
"Again?"
"I'm beginning to think the building dislikes me."
"The feeling is probably mutual."
Mrs. Renn chuckled.
"There you are. I was worried you didn't know how to joke."
Ten minutes later, carrying a toolbox and a growing sense of unease, Cael followed her downstairs.
Apartment 312 looked completely different from his own.
Where his apartment felt empty, hers felt full.
Books occupied nearly every shelf. Small plants sat near windows and on side tables. Framed photographs covered the walls, documenting decades of birthdays, holidays, celebrations, and ordinary moments.
The apartment felt lived in.
Comfortably so.
Mrs. Renn busied herself preparing tea while Cael crouched beneath the kitchen sink and examined the damaged pipe.
Fortunately, the problem wasn't serious.
As he worked, his gaze occasionally drifted toward the photographs decorating the walls. There were dozens of them. Some appeared recent. Others looked old enough to belong in a museum.
"You know," Mrs. Renn said while placing a kettle on the stove, "I used to remember every face in those pictures."
Cael glanced up.
The old woman was looking at a photograph on the nearby shelf.
Her expression had become distant.
"What changed?"
She smiled faintly.
"Time."
The answer sounded simple.
Yet something about her tone suggested it wasn't.
For a while, only the sounds of rain and rattling pipes filled the apartment.
Then Mrs. Renn picked up the photograph.
It showed a younger version of herself standing beside a tall man. Both were smiling at the camera. The image had faded slightly with age, but the happiness remained obvious.
"My husband," she said.
Cael nodded politely.
The old woman continued staring at the picture.
Seconds passed.
Then her smile disappeared.
A faint crease appeared between her brows.
Something looked wrong.
"That's strange."
"What is?"
Mrs. Renn frowned.
"I remember meeting him."
Her voice softened.
"I remember our wedding."
She traced a finger along the edge of the frame.
"I remember the day he proposed."
The frown deepened.
"I remember the day he died."
Silence settled over the room.
The kettle continued heating in the background.
Rain tapped against the windows.
And still Mrs. Renn stared at the photograph.
Finally, she spoke again.
"I don't remember his name."
The words hung in the air.
Cael slowly lowered his wrench.
Mrs. Renn laughed nervously.
A brittle sound.
"I know how that sounds."
But she didn't sound embarrassed.
She sounded frightened.
The old woman looked back at the photograph as though expecting the answer to appear if she stared long enough.
Nothing happened.
Her husband remained smiling inside the frame.
A stranger wearing the face of someone she had once loved.
Cael found himself looking around the apartment again.
At first glance, the photographs seemed ordinary.
The longer he looked, however, the more peculiar they became.
Several contained people he couldn't quite focus on.
Not blurred.
Not damaged.
Yet whenever he tried examining their faces, his attention seemed to slide away.
As though his mind instinctively refused to linger.
A chill crept across his skin.
"Mrs. Renn."
"Yes?"
He pointed toward one of the photographs hanging near the hallway.
"Who's that?"
The old woman followed his finger.
Her expression gradually changed.
Confusion.
Then uncertainty.
Then something uncomfortably close to fear.
"I..."
She stopped.
The answer never came.
For nearly half a minute, she simply stared at the image.
Finally, she shook her head.
"I don't know."
The room felt strangely quiet.
Not silent.
Just... quiet in a way it hadn't been before.
The rain still fell outside.
The kettle still rattled softly.
Yet something invisible seemed to have settled over the apartment.
Mrs. Renn looked away from the photograph first.
Her hands trembled slightly as she returned the frame of her husband to the shelf.
"Perhaps old age is catching up with me."
Cael wasn't convinced.
Neither, he suspected, was she.
When the repair was finally finished, Mrs. Renn thanked him with tea and a small container of homemade biscuits. He accepted both out of habit and left shortly afterward.
The rain greeted him the moment he stepped outside.
As he walked toward the archive, his thoughts remained fixed on Apartment 312.
Not the leaking pipe.
Not the photographs.
Not even the nameless husband.
What bothered him most was the look on Mrs. Renn's face.
People forgot things all the time.
Birthdays.
Addresses.
Conversations.
That was normal.
Forgetting the name of the person you spent half your life with wasn't.
And somehow, deep down, Cael felt that whatever had happened inside Apartment 312 was connected to the black card resting inside his pocket.
For the first time since receiving it, he found himself wondering whether the stranger had given him a gift.
Or a warning.