I walk as if I still belong. Darkness wraps itself around me, and I know someone is following. I can feel it—a pressure at the back of my neck, a presence always just out of sight. My hands are deep in my pockets. Zurich is cold in late October, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones. The city is clean, almost too clean, as if all the secrets are swept beneath the surface, hidden from view.
There's a rhythm here: the trams that come and go, the lights that disappear into the mist. People vanish behind glass and security. Everything is as it should be. But I am not as I should be. I am not part of this order.
I know I'm being followed.
It's not the first time, and it won't be the worst. They don't bother to run anymore. They just watch, waiting, long coats, faces blank, unreadable. They match my pace, pausing when I pause. I turn into a side street, past a bank I don't remember ever using. I am someone else now.
I am not my face. I only borrow it.
I am the one who remains when everything else is gone. The one who remembers, even when he wishes he could forget. Always the voice, never the body. If you asked me what I look like, I couldn't tell you. I remember many faces: scars on jaws, hands that trembled, hands that killed. Some of them were mine. Most were not. I am not young anymore. Perhaps I never was.
I have seen things not meant for me. I carry memories that do not belong to me, memories I have held before. I don't know what I am, or where these abilities came from, or where I could ever truly belong. I am new in this world, drifting between bodies, never sure where I fit.
What am I? A leap. A mistake. Perhaps a weapon, or just someone who cannot die. I call myself Vale. Not because it's my name—my real name died with my first body. Vale is all that's left of me now.
Still, I am being followed. It's too dark to see who is behind me, but I feel their presence, close and relentless. They know who I am—just someone who jumps from life to life. With every touch, I lose myself, and yet I find myself again and again. I have no idea where to go, but I know this: if that stranger catches me, I'll be gone from this earth. Where to? I have no idea. Maybe heaven. Maybe hell. But my body is already dead.
Before I became Vale, I had another life—a completely different life as a scientist. I was in the top ranks of biology at Oxford. The rooms were filled with strange people, all hoping for a future, myself included. The air smelled of disinfectant, the halls lined with ducts and glass jars for the samples we studied, created, and tested.
My life was under control. I studied biology in Manchester for a few years, then in Berlin, even gave a presentation in Oslo. Everything was orderly. I wouldn't say I was rich or poor—somewhere in between. And I was content. I worked, asked questions, discussed results. That's how it was, even a few years ago, when I implanted slime molds into brain tissue and studied their connections.
They were intelligent, even without organs or a nervous system. They knew what they were doing, and I wanted to know more. I knew what I wanted to devote my life to. The clouds over Manchester were heavy, too heavy for early spring. It was a dark evening when I left the institute. The memory comes back in fragments. The sound of my own voice saying, "You don't have to…"
A knife. I don't say it at first. Just a boy, his shadow. The way he moved, like prey pretending to be a hunter. Then the pain. The question—why? I was bleeding, the knife stuck in me. I screamed, the pain was sharp and real. I remember the world passing by: my education, my parents living in Switzerland, my sister who disappeared to America… The boy hesitated, not realizing he would take a life tonight. He lingered for a moment, then came closer, knowing I couldn't fight back. And in that moment, as he touched my skin—a spark. Nerves on fire, blood too hot, breath too shallow. I remember the cobblestones, the gutter, and then I was standing over my own body. There I lay, staring into my own eyes. Lost and disoriented, I pressed myself against the wall in fear.
I looked down. My hands were wrong—too young, too dirty. They held something sharp. My skin was no longer pale, but darker. I looked at my body on the ground, limp as a sack of potatoes, eyes wide open, staring ahead. They were my eyes. Like sharp needles, sudden headaches stabbed through me. Thoughts and memories raced in. Out of nowhere, I knew who I was, where I lived, who I lived with. Even the closest people in this new life—I could name them all.
I was dead. I had to run. I had lost everything. I disappeared into the darkness from which Enrique Gonzalez had come. I wandered the side streets of Manchester. I still knew the city, still knew where I was, but I was no longer "me"—I was a migrant from Mexico, who had come with his family years ago. His father a taxi driver, his mother a housewife, his younger brother living in a small apartment near Halms Park.
I hid under Enrique's hood so no one could see me. No one watched me in his skin, as if I were dust. The streets were half empty. Everyone went about their business, and so did I. I struggled with my own death, not knowing where to go except home. His home. It was the safest thing I had left—a family waiting for me, knowing nothing. Neither that Enrique was a criminal, nor that he had killed a man.
His memories guided me home automatically. I looked down. A cold wind blew. I thought about what I should say, where I had been, but his memories told me that no one cared. Not his mother, not his father—he was on his own. The house was old, the kind given to people like them. Full of uncertainty about where to go, Enrique's memories, like a GPS, told me where to walk. The front door was heavy, the stairs old and cold as I climbed them. Enrique's memories led me into his house and, for a brief moment, with a pounding headache, I went through his habits. But his memories said: "Say nothing." Because no one missed him. Because no one asked.
The parents sat at the dinner table, eating. I felt out of place in this room with people I didn't know. I didn't know how this could have happened. "Enrique, my boy, come eat," called the father in Spanish. "I'll be right there," I replied, and he took another drink, unbothered by my presence. I went to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror, surprised. Black hair, standing up. The mole next to my lip. My new skin color. I looked at the teenager, almost half my age. I could hardly believe it. I didn't want it. I washed my hands with soap, wondering how I could return to my own body. Overwhelmed, I tried to cope with the situation... I returned to the kitchen, where my family was waiting for me.
I sat down at the table. The chairs wobbled slightly, the light was too bright. Enrique's mother pushed a plate toward me—beans and rice, a piece of meat that smelled of too much salt. I knew I should thank her, but the words stuck in my throat. My Spanish was there, somewhere, but it felt like a jacket that didn't belong to me.
The father looked at me, scrutinizing, as if he could see through my skin. I felt the weight of his expectation. "Is everything alright, Enrique?" he asked, his voice rough from alcohol. I nodded. Smiled. The fork trembled in my hand as I ate.
The little brother stared at me, as if he had noticed something. Maybe it was just childish curiosity, maybe more. I forced myself to stay calm, to mimic the movements Enrique's memories whispered: first the meat, then the beans, then the rice. I didn't know if I was doing it right.
The conversation at the table drifted on, meaningless, like a radio in the next room. I understood the words, but they meant nothing to me. I was a guest in this life, a thief at my own table.
After dinner, the father retreated to the living room, the mother stacked the plates. "Help your mother, Enrique," she said, without looking at me. I stood up, took a plate, felt the weight of the porcelain in my hand. The kitchen smelled of dish soap and fatigue.
As I let the water run, I saw myself reflected in the window. Black hair, dark eyes, a face that wasn't mine. I wondered how long I could stay before they realized I wasn't Enrique.
My pursuer was closing in. He was getting closer. But he couldn't strike while there were people nearby. He knew I would jump—another body, a new life. He would know immediately, because in Zurich at night, there weren't many options. Especially not with so few people outside. The Zurich old town was almost empty, the streets barely lit. I heard music, coming closer. I knew I would soon have to find my next path. I knew I might find my fulfillment, my wish for completion. I heard a bar closing, folk music playing. With no other option, I had to go in and change my host. Only then could I survive—hidden, in the shadows.