He walked the same streets, sat on the same benches, passed the same faces—but he’d become invisible. Not in the magical sense, but in the way a thought vanishes from the tongue, or a name slips into fog. People looked through him. Algorithms forgot him. Even mirrors hesitated. At first, he fought it. But silence met him each time—an eerie, dull silence. His shadow remained—but it walked behind him now, detached, as if unsure whether it belonged. It whispered things when he slept. It held his arm too tight. He began to question whether he’d ever existed enough to leave a mark. The shadow grew stronger as he faded, tethered to his back like a second self—mute, smoky, patient. One day, in the glass of a storefront, he saw only the shadow standing there, staring back.