The city felt smaller. Streets once familiar now pressed in, foreign despite the memories beneath the years. Storefronts had changed, but the bones remained—the cracked pavement, the scent of rain clinging to the cold air. He knew them, yet they did not know him.

John stood at the street’s edge, breath curling in the night air. The house was still there, tucked beneath the skeletal branches of an old oak. Its porch light glowed dimly, casting long shadows. The wind chimes swayed, their song barely audible over the pounding in his chest. It looked untouched, but time changed everything. He was proof of that.

Twenty years.

The number weighed on him, heavy as the rifle that had once hung from his shoulders. A lifetime of silence, missed birthdays, empty anniversaries. He had survived war, captivity, the slow erosion of self in the field. He had fought through jungles, deserts, and frozen wastelands, but now—facing this door—he hesitated.

His once-steady hands trembled. Scarred, calloused fingers curled slightly, stiff with old breaks. His shoulders, once broad with youth, carried decades of weight. His uniform was gone, replaced by a loose jacket. Silver streaked his hair, a stark contrast to the man who had left—strong, sure, untouched by time.

He caught his reflection in a car window. Hollowed cheeks, deep-lined forehead, shadowed eyes. A stranger stared back. His jaw clenched.

What if they didn’t recognize him?

What if they did?

Had they moved on? Had his absence been sealed like an old wound, his name spoken in mourning before fading into nothing? He had no right to expect otherwise. He had vanished. No letters. No word. Just a ghost lost to duty.

His fingers curled into a fist.

What if someone else lived here? What if his place had been filled, his memory buried beneath time’s weight?

John had been trained for war, for suffering, for loss. But not for this.

Before he could stop himself, his knuckles rapped against the wood.

The sound cut through the night like a gunshot.