Ramses stared at the blinking pigeon as if it were an omen. For days, he had watched the cracks spread—leaves shivering, puddles rippling, stars shifting. But this… this was undeniable. A living creature, once frozen, had just moved.
The first blink.
He should have felt triumphant. He should have celebrated, shouted into the sky that his prison of silence was finally breaking. But instead, a hollow ache spread through his chest. His throat tightened, and for the first time in a long time, fear crept back in.
It whispered the one thought he had been trying to outrun:
What if none of this mattered?
That night, he sat on the rooftop, legs dangling over the edge as the city stood beneath him in its eerie stillness. The world looked like a painting that someone had forgotten to finish. His reflection stared back from the dark glass windows across the street, a leaner, stronger version of the man who had once felt like a failure.
But he couldn't help wondering: Was this transformation real? Or just a dream inside another dream?
He had built muscles that weren't there before, discipline that once seemed impossible. His mind felt sharper, clearer, braver. He had faced demons in the silence, fought battles no one would ever know about.
And yet, as the frozen air thickened with motion, he doubted.
Would people see him as changed—or would their first words, their first looks, drag him back into the shell of his old self? Would the freeze strip away his growth like smoke dissolving into nothing?
He clenched his fists. His breath came heavier. He hated that part of him still trembled at the thought of being judged.
"Am I really different?" he asked aloud, voice cracking in the silence. "Or am I just pretending?"
The city gave him no answer.
Sleep came late, restless and broken. When he finally closed his eyes, his dreams betrayed him.
He dreamed he was back in his old apartment, sitting in front of the computer, wasting hours on meaningless games and scrolling through regrets. His body was weak again, his eyes hollow, his chest heavy with depression. The fridge was empty, the room smelled of failure, and the old Ramses had returned—pathetic and powerless.
In the dream, his family knocked at the door, calling his name. But when he opened it, they looked at him with disappointment. His father's eyes said, I expected more from you. His mother's silence screamed, You wasted everything we gave you.
And his younger self appeared, staring at him with mocking eyes.
"You really thought you changed?" the boy sneered. "This was all fake. A fantasy. The moment time moves again, you'll go back to who you really are. Weak. Lost. Nothing."
Ramses jolted awake, heart pounding, sweat dripping down his neck. His body trembled, and for the first time since the freeze began, tears rolled freely down his cheeks.
The next morning—if it could be called morning—he forced himself to stand in front of a mirror. He looked at the reflection: strong arms, sharper jawline, steadier eyes. He had worked for this. He had earned this. But still, the mirror felt like a liar.
He pressed his palm against the glass.
"Is this me?" he whispered. "Or just a version of me that can't exist once they wake up?"
His reflection didn't answer, but the silence in the room felt heavy with doubt.
Later that day, Ramses walked through the frozen streets. The cracks in the freeze were everywhere now. A child's balloon tugged faintly against its string, a soda can rolled an inch across the pavement, a streetlight flickered like a tired eye.
Each sign reminded him that his time was running out.
He sat on the curb and buried his face in his hands.
"What if I'm not enough?" he muttered. "What if all this training, all this growth… was just to trick myself into believing I had worth? What if the real world doesn't care? What if I fall the moment it returns?"
The questions circled like vultures in his head.
He thought about the people who once knew him—the classmates who had seen him as awkward, the coworkers who had seen him as weak, even his friends who had stopped calling because he had faded into the background. Would they believe he had changed? Or would they laugh, say it was just another phase, another lie Ramses told himself before slipping back into mediocrity?
The thought crushed him.
But then, in the silence, a memory surfaced.
He remembered the day he had written a letter to his past self, telling that broken boy he was worthy of forgiveness. He remembered how hard it was to confront the darkest corners of his heart, to admit his flaws, to still choose himself. That had been no illusion. That had been real.
He lifted his head.
Maybe doubt was part of the test. Maybe the freeze wasn't ending to punish him—it was ending to see if he could carry this new version of himself into the moving world.
Still, fear clung to him like chains.
That night, Ramses lit a candle in the middle of his apartment. It flickered faintly—the first real flame he had seen move since the freeze began. He sat before it, staring, letting the light wash over his face.
"I'm scared," he confessed to the flame. "I'm scared of losing everything. I'm scared they'll see me as nothing. I'm scared I'll see myself as nothing again."
The flame wavered but did not die.
Ramses drew in a sharp breath.
"But even if I fail… even if the world doesn't see me… I'll still know. I'll know what I did here. I'll know the man I became when no one was watching. That's real. That's mine. And no one can take that from me."
His voice trembled, but it carried strength too.
"I can't control how they see me. But I can control who I choose to be."
The candle glowed brighter, and Ramses felt something inside him steady. Doubt still lingered, but it no longer ruled him.
When he finally lay down to rest, his mind was quieter. He knew the fear wouldn't vanish overnight, but he also knew this:
The man who had entered the freeze was not the man who would leave it.
And even if the world tried to pull him back into the shadows, Ramses was ready to fight for his place in the light.
Because change wasn't just about being seen.
It was about being.
And that truth, at least, was unshakable.