The building behind him was quiet now. Sterile and strange. Like a place meant for healing but hollow at its core—more mausoleum than hospital. He didn't know what it had been exactly. Maybe a clinic. Maybe something else. The scent of antiseptic still clung to his skin like an invisible brand, sharp and cloying, crawling into his nostrils every time he breathed.
He wore a thin white shirt, papery and unfamiliar. It fluttered slightly in the wind like something borrowed—or stolen.
He had no shoes.
No ID.
No answers.
But he had one clear desire, sharp and clean like the first breath after surfacing from drowning:
He wanted to go home.
That thought, simple and fierce, anchored him as he wandered the city. He moved like a sleepwalker, one step at a time through streets that felt almost—but not quite—familiar. The traffic lights blinked in indifferent rhythm. People passed him without turning their heads. None of the faces meant anything. The buildings, the sounds, the distant voices…
It was like walking through someone else's dream.
Or someone else's life.
Eventually, his feet led him to a squat concrete building, tucked between a pharmacy and an old church. The sign was faded, but the red and blue lights above the doorway gave it away.
A police station.
He hesitated at the door. Something deep in his gut twisted—not fear exactly, but the dread of being seen. Of being asked to explain something he couldn't.
But he went in anyway.
The fluorescent lights inside were too bright. The floor was scuffed tile, the air stale with coffee and disinfectant. A bored-looking officer sat behind a thick glass window. Her eyes moved lazily over Félix, taking in the bare feet, the flimsy shirt, the hollow look in his eyes.
"Help you?" she asked, voice flat.
Félix opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
"I… I don't know who I am."
That made her blink. She sat up a little straighter. "You're saying you have amnesia?"
"I think so. I woke up near a building. I don't know where. It smelled like a hospital, but… I don't remember anything. Not my name. Not where I live. Nothing."
The officer eyed him for a moment, then picked up the phone. Two more officers came out—one younger, with a notepad in hand, the other older, with lines on his face that said he'd seen too many strange things to be surprised anymore.
They led him into a small back room. Sterile. Peeling paint. One barred window high on the wall.
The kind of place where lost things went.
"Name?" the younger officer asked.
"I think it's… Félix," he said. "I don't know the rest."
The older one asked the next question. "How old are you?"
"Maybe twenty? Twenty-two? I don't really—" He stopped. His voice cracked. "I don't know."
"Any family? Friends? Numbers we can call?"
Félix shook his head. The lump in his throat was growing, swelling with something that tasted like shame. Or fear. Or both.
"Where did you wake up?"
"A white room. Machines. Bright lights. There was no one there. No windows. Just… white."
"You sure it wasn't a hospital?"
"I don't know. It didn't feel like one."
The older officer exhaled slowly, then nodded to his partner. The younger one began jotting things down in his notepad, every detail that Félix could offer—though there weren't many.
The older officer stepped out to make calls.
The minutes dragged.
Félix sat still, hands clasped tightly in his lap. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. The younger officer offered him a cup of water. He took it with trembling fingers.
They ran him through the system. Missing persons. Hospital records. Local cases. Surveillance footage.
Nothing.
No one was looking for him.
No match in the databases.
No evidence he even existed before today.
The older officer came back in and shut the door behind him with a heavy sigh.
"We got nothing on you, kid."
Félix stared. "What do you mean nothing?"
"No reports. No ID. No fingerprints in any system. You're not flagged as missing. No one's looking for a guy named Félix matching your description. As far as the records go, you don't exist."
Something cold and leaden settled in Félix's chest.
"I don't understand," he whispered.
"Neither do we," the officer said, rubbing his temples. "But you're not in any immediate danger, and you're not a criminal. So we can't hold you. Best we can do is drop you off at a shelter or give you directions to one."
"I don't want a shelter," Félix said, the words coming out before he could stop them. "I just want to go home."
The officers didn't say anything.
Because there was nothing to say.
Félix stood, dizzy on his bare feet.
"Is that it, then?"
"We'll file a report," the younger officer offered gently. "If anything turns up, we'll let you know."
"But how will you find me?" Félix asked. "I don't even know where I'll be."
The question hung in the air like smoke.
He stumbled out of the police station like a ghost pushed from the land of the living. The sky was a flat grey canvas, heavy with cloud. The city pulsed around him—horns, chatter, tires on asphalt—but none of it touched him. None of it mattered.
No answers.
No help.
Just silence.
And the cold.
He walked without knowing where he was going. His feet, raw and bruised, carried him through alleyways and empty streets until the buildings gave way to a patch of neglected green—a small park tucked between high-rise shadows.
It was nearly empty.
Just a couple of rusted benches. A broken fountain. A flickering streetlamp that buzzed like it was dying.
Félix sank onto the nearest bench.
The wood was damp beneath him. Cold soaked into his skin. He folded his trembling hands in his lap and stared at them. They didn't even feel like his.
Around him, the city kept moving. The wind rustled the trees. Somewhere far off, someone laughed.
It all felt unreal.
Like he was watching a world that no longer had a place for him.
They don't understand. No one understands.
Not the officers.
Not the people passing by.
Not even him.
What kind of person wakes up with no past? No name? No memory? What kind of world looks at that and shrugs?
His chest tightened again, the weight pressing harder now.
He was tired.
So impossibly tired.
And that's when the thought came.
Quiet.
Cold.
Certain.
Tomorrow… I'll end it.
It wasn't a cry for help. There was no one left to hear it.
It wasn't a plan, not exactly.
More like… a promise.
A quiet vow to escape a world that had already forgotten him.
His eyes drifted closed, but sleep didn't come.
Only the flickering light of the streetlamp above him, and the hum of a city that moved on without him.