The first thing Khương Triều Dạ did when he woke up was check the time.
7:08 AM.
The city outside his window still looked like the Nam Kinh he remembered—buses grumbling, vendors shouting, dogs barking behind rusted fences. It was all normal. Too normal.
His body ached, but not from fatigue. It was as if something had been peeled back inside him and left exposed to the air. But his skin was intact. No wounds. No scars. No blood.
He stood before the bathroom mirror and stared at his reflection. It stared back—correctly. No phantom arms. No stitched faces. No thing lurking behind him.
Yet he didn't feel like himself.
He pressed a palm against the cool tile wall. It didn't breathe this time.
Just a wall.
---
Khương Triều Dạ put on a black windbreaker, zipped up to his throat, and went downstairs. The elevator worked. A man inside greeted him with a nod. A woman stepped in and asked him to press floor 3. He complied without thinking.
He could talk. He could move. He could function.
But everything still felt slightly out of sync—like the world had shifted half a centimeter sideways.
At the street corner, he bought a warm soy milk and a you tiao from an old vendor who had known him for years.
"Morning, Dạ," the vendor said. "You look pale today. Rough night?"
"Just didn't sleep well," he answered, voice even.
The lie came smoothly.
"Try not to overwork. You've got that look in your eye again. Like you're... somewhere else."
Khương Triều Dạ smiled politely and took his food. The vendor's words echoed oddly.
Somewhere else.
---
At the office—a cramped, yellow-lit building with peeling paint and buzzing lights—he sat in front of his desk and stared at rows of numbers. Accounting firm. Dead-end job. Familiar routine.
His co-worker Hà Linh leaned over their divider. "Hey. You alive in there?"
He blinked. "Yeah. Just... zoning out."
"Figures. You missed all the weird stuff last night. Half the city's power grid glitched out. Some say it was a solar flare. Others think it's ghosts again."
He tried to play along. "Ghosts don't short out transformers."
Hà Linh grinned. "Yeah, well, tell that to the guy who saw his own reflection wave at him."
That made his hand stiffen slightly over the keyboard.
"Wasn't it just a blackout?" he asked, cautiously.
"Probably. But the weirdest part? People swear there were… shadows moving in the static on their TV screens. Like something crawling, even after the power cut."
He looked up.
"What kind of shadows?"
Hà Linh tilted her head. "You're into this creepy stuff now?"
He paused. "Just curious."
She laughed, then turned back to her computer. The moment passed.
But something in him tightened. Like his nerves were listening harder than his ears.
---
During lunch break, he sat in the small rooftop garden. The city buzzed below: motorbikes honking, loudspeakers blaring public announcements. Birds flitted through the gray sky.
Khương Triều Dạ sat cross-legged on a bench, eyes closed.
He was testing.
For what, he wasn't sure. A flicker. A sound. A breath not his own.
But there was nothing. Not even the second heartbeat he remembered.
---
When he returned to his apartment that evening, he found everything exactly where he left it.
No strange books. No blood. No breathing walls.
And yet, as he brushed his teeth, he noticed the mirror again. Not warped. Not cracked.
But in the reflection behind him, a light flickered—just once—on the wall.
He turned.
Nothing.
He leaned closer to the mirror, whispering:
"Can you still see me?"
And though no voice answered, something deep inside his chest pulsed.
Not pain. Not fear.
Recognition.
---