Intro

Mike sank into the corner chair, the warmth of the coffee cup doing little to soothe the weight pressing on his chest. Around him, the café buzzed with life - laughter spilling over desserts, a father guiding his daughter's small hand toward a muffin, a young woman absorbed in her notebook, an elderly man passing a croissant with a quiet smile. He saw them, yet he didn't. His mind floated somewhere else, tangled in memories and questions he couldn't face.

A flash of red hair at the edge of his vision made his chest tighten. Not her exactly, but the curve of the neck, the way the light caught it - enough to prick memory and ache. He blinked. The figure moved on. Perhaps a trick of the crowded café, perhaps something more.

"You noticed her."

Mike's head jerked toward the voice. A tall, wiry man leaned against the table edge, sharp eyes observing him with unsettling precision. Calm, deliberate, almost teasing, he spoke again. "You already know, in some way. Don't you?"

Mike's hands tightened around the cup. "I... I don't understand."

The stranger's gaze swept the café, lingering on laughter, gestures, and quiet moments. "You see it, don't you? The fragments. The lives you never lived, the choices you never made, the memories that hum quietly in your chest. What if you didn't have to see them? What if you could step into another life, just for a moment?"

Mike's legs refused to obey when he tried to stand, heavy and resistant, as though the floor itself held him. "I... I shouldn't. I don't want this."

The stranger leaned closer, voice low and insistent, teasing yet intimate. "Ah, but you do. You already want to know. Look around. Who could you become if you dared? Whose life, whose memory, could you borrow... just for a step?"

Mike's pulse thundered. The café's ordinary chaos felt distant, unreal. He was suspended - caught between fear and curiosity, between reality and something he couldn't name.

And a whisper lingered in his mind,: Who could I be... ?