He remained still for a long time.
The room was clearly visible before him, every familiar detail in the wrong place. The desk. The chair. The wardrobe left slightly open. And on the bed, his body. Too motionless. Too silent.
The first emotion was fear.
It came quickly, instinctively. A sudden tightening, like an impulse trying to grab him and pull him back. He understood immediately that it was dangerous. Fear belonged to the body. If he let it grow, it would wake him.
He suppressed it.
He focused on useless details. The shape of the window frame. The streetlight filtering through the curtains. Keeping fear under control required attention, like holding shut something that was pushing to get out.
It worked.
The fear remained, but distant.
He tried to move.
There were no muscles, no sense of weight. He simply changed position. One moment he was near the bed, the next closer to the desk. No sound. No resistance.
He took another step. Then another.
Nothing reacted to his presence. The chair didn't move. The floor didn't creak. It was as if he wasn't really there.
He turned back toward the bed. His body hadn't moved. It was sleeping.
A strange calm made its way into his chest. Not relief. Control.
He left the room and walked down the hallway. The apartment was identical, but emptier. The walls seemed flatter, the shadows less defined.
His mother was asleep in her room.
He stopped at the doorway.
He called her softly.
"Mom."
No reaction.
He tried again, a little louder. Nothing.
He reached out.
When he tried to touch her, he felt nothing. His hand passed straight through her. Arm, shoulder, as if her body were made of air.
Something inside him snapped.
Fear surged back violently. His heartbeat sped up, a blind impulse trying to drag him back. For a moment, he thought it was over.
He froze.
He closed his eyes. Not because it was necessary, but because it helped him focus. He forced a calm he didn't feel. He repeated one thing to himself, precisely:
Don't be afraid.
The fear didn't disappear. But it didn't take control.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing had changed. His mother was still asleep. The apartment was silent.
He stepped away from the doorway.
That was when he decided to leave.
The thought was clear, sharp. He needed to go outside.
Doubt followed immediately. The front door was closed. He knew that. And he also knew he couldn't touch it.
He stood in the hallway, facing the door, thinking.
When he had awakened, he hadn't left his body. He hadn't moved at all. He had already been a few steps away. There had been no transition, only displacement.
Maybe distance doesn't matter, he thought.
He focused on the outside. The street. The night air. The space beyond the walls.
And suddenly, he found himself closer to the door.
He hadn't moved. He was simply there.
He hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward.
This time, he didn't stop.
He passed through the door.
There was no resistance. No effort. The wood, the lock, the frame meant nothing. He was on the other side.
The landing opened before him, lit by a weak light. The bulbs hummed softly. Shadows gathered in the corners.
He stood still for a few seconds, letting the sensation settle.
He hadn't teleported.
He had walked through.
And for the first time since he had awakened, beneath the fear something new surfaced:
the quiet awareness that the night was far larger than he had ever imagined.
He went down the stairs without making a sound.
Each step was there, but offered no resistance. The handrail passed through his arm when he instinctively tried to touch it. There was no cold. No solidity. Only space.
The building's entrance opened before him without any effort on his part. The glass door was closed, but it meant nothing. He passed through it as he had passed through the one at home.
He was outside.
The night street welcomed him with a dim, artificial light. Streetlamps illuminated in irregular patches, leaving entire stretches submerged in shadow. The asphalt was glossy, as if it had rained recently. The shop windows were dark, turned into black mirrors reflecting distant lights and distorted silhouettes.
It was his street.But not entirely.
The city of the 1990s, at night, seemed to slow down. Modern buildings stretched upward, their facades flattening, stripped of depth. The lines were the same as during the day, but without warmth. Everything felt farther away, colder.
He walked without a clear destination.
Then he saw them.
Two figures were moving along the opposite sidewalk. They walked side by side, at a slow, steady pace, perfectly synchronized. They didn't seem in a hurry. They didn't look around.
He could hear them talking.
Their voices came through clearly—too clearly. They were talking about grandchildren. About a walk they had taken that afternoon. About a knee that hurt when the weather changed. Ordinary phrases, everyday conversation, spoken calmly.
Fiab thought they were elderly people.
They came close enough for him to see them better.
And that was when something was wrong.
Their faces were obscured. Not hidden by shadow. Not lost in bad light. There was simply nothing there to see. As if someone had smeared a hand across them, erasing all detail. No eyes. No mouth. No expression.
He tried to look past it.
There was nothing.
Only heads without features, like damaged mannequins, as if the face had been removed and left unfinished.
He stopped.
Fear rose slowly, but deeply. Not a sudden shock, but a constant pressure tightening his chest. He remained motionless. Especially because they were getting closer. They kept talking, in the same calm voices, as if nothing were strange.
Fiab did the only thing that came to mind.
He crossed the street.
He did it without looking for traffic, as if it didn't exist. On the other side, under the brighter light of a streetlamp, he saw another figure.
A cleaning worker was quietly doing his job. He pushed a cart slowly. His jacket reflected the light. His face was visible. Tired. Real. The eyes were there. The wrinkles were there.
A normal face.
Maybe that was why he could see it.
He passed by him unnoticed and felt a sudden sense of relief, immediate, almost physical. He glanced back.
The two figures had crossed as well.
They stopped for a moment. Their faceless heads were turned in his direction. They didn't seem surprised. They didn't seem interested.
Then they started walking again.
They continued down the street, talking about their grandchildren, about the evening chill, about time passing.
As if nothing had happened.
Fiab remained standing under the streetlamp, while the night city slowly began to breathe again.
And he understood that not everything that walked at night belonged to the same level of reality.