Semua Bab Claimed by Death : Bab 21 - Bab 30

His Point of View I follow him when he leaves the table. Not because the date failed. Not because she reached for something forbidden. Because he is lying. The restroom door closes behind him, and the man exhales like he has been holding himself together by habit alone. His shoulders drop. The expression he wore across the table dissolves. The phone is already in his hand. “Yeah,” he says quietly. A pause. “No, I’m still at work.” The lie is effortless. He turns toward the sink, lowering his voice, eyes fixed on his reflection as if it might contradict him. “Something ran late,” he continues. “I told you this week would be busy.” Another pause. “Yes. I know.” “Yes, I’ll be home soon.” There is no guilt in his tone. Only efficiency. “I love you,” he adds, like punctuation. The call ends. He stares at himself in the mirror for a long moment, jaw tight, fingers braced against the porcelain. He straightens his jacket and adjusts his collar, rehearsing the face he will t

His Point of View I stop at her door. I have already left her apartment. I have already withdrawn my presence from the room, released the pressure, restored the quiet. And yet I remain here. That detail matters to me more than it should. I have crossed countless thresholds in my existence. Bedrooms. Hospital rooms. Battlefields. Quiet kitchens where the kettle screamed even as life slipped away. I am not a being who hesitates at doors. I do not need permission to enter. I hesitate because I should not. If I step back inside, restraint will not come so easily a second time. This is not a soul I was meant to guide away. This is a life I stepped into. The street outside breathes in its ordinary way. Cars pass. A couple laughs somewhere down the block. Music drifts from an open window, thin and human and persistent. The world continues. It always does. I have watched empires fall without the earth pausing beneath them. I have carried the last breath of kings and criminals al

His Point of View Fate does not arrive. It tightens. The weave draws taut around me the moment I step beyond Nora’s building. Not a snare. Not a strike. A recalibration. Threads hum at the edge of my awareness, vibrating with the low tension of something that has been disturbed and is now accounting for the disturbance. I stop walking. The street continues around me. Traffic flows. Voices overlap. A bus exhales at the curb. The space I occupy narrows anyway, precise and deliberate. The world adjusts its posture without knowing why. The pressure increases. That is the closest thing to an invitation Fate ever offers. I have stood inside this tension before. Not often. Only when something has deviated far enough to demand acknowledgment. Fate does not waste attention on minor variance. It corrects those silently. This is not silent. “You linger.” The words resonate through structure rather than sound, precise and unavoidable. They do not echo. They do not repeat. Fate does no

His Point of ViewI do not leave the street immediately.I tell myself it is caution. Observation. A moment to ensure the thread settles back into its proper place.That is a lie.Her window glows faintly above me. Not with light. She has already turned the lamp off. With presence. A warmth pressed into the weave, subtle and persistent, like a held breath. I feel it the way I feel endings approaching, the quiet tightening that precedes the cut.Only this is not an ending.It is a beginning.I turn away.That should have been enough.The night resumes around me. Tires hiss against wet pavement. A bus exhales at the corner. Somewhere a radio plays a song I do not recognize, thin and human and stubbornly alive. I move through it unseen, as I always have, slipping between moments without resistance.Then her thread tightens.Not sharply.Not violently.It draws.I stop.And I know immediately this is not the same as before.This time, I am not searching. I am not answering.I am being led

His Point of View I leave her before the dream can thin any further. Not because it is unsafe, but because it is the only place where function does not dictate me. The weave does not record what passes there. No thread tightens. No balance reacts. What occurred between us leaves no mark that can be traced. What leaves no record does not matter. What it leads me to do does. It lingered longer than it should have. Not the contact itself. That was gone the moment I withdrew. It was the recognition. That quiet, dangerous sense of alignment that has no place in something like me. I was not made to be met that way, and she should never have to become what being close to me would require. So I lock myself back into distance. Into precision. Into the role I cannot afford to step out of. Time resumes its ordinary crawl. Morning breaks. Threads move. Lives continue, unaware of what was almost allowed to matter. Nora goes to the café and takes a seat near the window. The ba