Morning came without ceremony.
The road was pale with early light, dust still damp from the night air. Birds moved through the hedges, restless but unafraid. Somewhere behind him, a door opened. Somewhere else, smoke began to rise from a chimney.
No one called his name.
He walked at an even pace, neither hurried nor slow. The bag on his shoulder was light—too light for a life—but he had learned that carrying less made it easier not to look back.
The village thinned behind him piece by piece. The well. The bend in the road where children used to run. The tree that leaned a little too far toward the path. Each landmark slipped out of view without protest.
He did not stop.
By the time the sun cleared the horizon, the rooftops were gone.
The road ahead was unremarkable. Packed dirt. Occasional stones. Wheel marks left by carts that had passed earlier, already beginning to soften at the edges.
He followed it without choosing.
Hours passed. Hunger came and went quietly. Thirst lingered longer, but he ignored it until he reached a stream and drank with his hands cupped, water cold and clean against his mouth.
No one watched him.
That absence felt unfamiliar.
By midday, he reached a small settlement—little more than a crossroads with an inn and a few clustered homes. People moved about their business without looking at him twice. To them, he was only another traveler, indistinct and temporary.
The innkeeper asked his name.
He hesitated.
The pause was brief, but it carried weight. Names had once meant continuity. Now they felt like promises he could not keep.
He gave one anyway.
The innkeeper nodded, wrote it down, and moved on.
That was all it took.
Inside, the inn smelled of bread and old wood. He sat near the wall, back to the room, watching reflections move across the surface of his cup. Conversations flowed around him easily, unbroken by his presence.
It was quieter than home had ever been.
He ate slowly, tasting each bite without hurry. The food settled normally. His body responded as expected. Nothing about him drew notice.
This, he realized, was what safety looked like now.
Not familiarity.
Not belonging.
Anonymity.
That evening, he left the inn before anyone could ask where he was headed next. He followed the road out of the settlement as the light faded, choosing a spot beneath a stand of trees to rest.
The ground was uneven. Roots pressed against his back. The sky above was wide and indifferent.
He lay there listening to sounds he did not recognize—distant animals, wind moving through unfamiliar branches. No footsteps paused nearby. No doors creaked open to check on him.
For the first time since the grave, he was truly alone.
The thought did not frighten him.
It settled.
He stared up at the darkening sky and waited for memories to rise—for faces, for voices, for the shape of the life he had left behind.
They came only briefly.
Then he let them go.
Sleep arrived quietly, without dreams.
He did not dream.
When he woke, it was because the cold had worked its way through the thin ground and into his bones. Dawn was still some distance away. The trees above him were silhouettes against a sky that had not yet decided on a color.
He sat up slowly, joints responding without complaint, and listened.
Nothing.
No voices.
No footsteps.
No signs that anyone knew he had been there at all.
He brushed dirt from his clothes and shouldered his bag. The motion felt practiced already, as if his body understood something his mind had not fully accepted yet.
He walked before the light returned.
The road stretched on in shallow curves, passing through fields that would soon be planted, then through land left fallow and quiet. He passed a farmer repairing a fence. The man glanced up, nodded once, and returned to his work.
No recognition.
No questions.
By midday, the village he had left was already too far behind to imagine clearly. He tried, briefly—tried to picture the exact shape of the street where he had grown up, the sound of his mother moving through the house in the early morning.
The images blurred.
He did not force them back into focus.
At another settlement, smaller than the last, he bought bread and water. The woman who took his coins asked where he was headed.
"Not sure," he said.
She smiled politely, the way people did when they expected nothing further. "Safe travels."
He nodded and left.
The phrase followed him longer than it should have.
Safe.
He slept in different places after that. Barns. Abandoned sheds. Once, beneath a collapsed stone bridge where the ground was dry and the river sounded far away. Each place held him for a night, then released him without resistance.
Days passed.
He stopped counting them.
The rhythm of walking replaced the rhythm of living. Wake. Move. Eat when necessary. Rest when the body insisted. Nothing pressed him to stay anywhere longer than a single evening.
No one learned his habits.
No one noticed when he left.
One night, sitting by a small fire he let burn down too low, he realized he had not spoken aloud all day. The silence did not feel heavy. It felt efficient.
He understood then that leaving had not been an act.
It had been a beginning.
The further he went, the easier it became not to imagine returning. Distance dulled edges. Familiarity lost its pull. The idea of walking back into that village—into the looks, the questions, the careful concern—felt unreal, like remembering a place he had only dreamed of.
He was already becoming someone else.
On the seventh night, he stopped using his old name even in his thoughts.
There was no moment of decision. It simply stopped appearing, like a word used too rarely to remain useful. When he needed to think of himself, there was only I.
That was enough.
The road ahead disappeared into low hills, the path narrowing as it climbed. He stood for a long moment at the base, looking forward rather than back.
There was no sense of relief.
Only acceptance.
Leaving had protected them—from questions, from fear, from whatever would have followed if he had stayed.
It had protected him, too.
But protection came at a cost.
He took his first step into the hills without ceremony, the ground rising gently beneath his feet.
Behind him, the world continued as it always had.
Without him.