Daniel Reyes left before anyone told him to.
That was the part he would remember later—not the leaving itself, but the fact that no one had to say the words. The decision arrived fully formed, quiet and inevitable, the way winter came when you paid attention to the light long enough.
The town had begun to notice.
Not openly. Not cruelly. Just enough to be dangerous.
It was in the glances that lingered a half second too long. In the way people tilted their heads when they saw him across the street, as if measuring him against an old memory that refused to line up. In the casual jokes that carried a hook beneath them.
"You ever gonna grow a beard, Danny?"
"You sure you're not lying about your age?"
He laughed when laughter was expected. Shrugged when shrugging kept things moving. He learned how to redirect conversations without stopping them, how to let people feel clever instead of curious.
But curiosity always ripened into something else.
The man who raised him noticed first. He always did.
They stood together at the edge of the field one evening, watching the sun drop low enough to set the grass on fire with color. The man leaned on the fence, older now, shoulders set differently than they used to be. Time had taken its payment from him honestly.
Daniel felt it then—not guilt, not fear—but a precise, cutting awareness.
The distance between them was widening.
"You know," the man said casually, "when I was your age, I already had a bad knee and a worse back."
Daniel smiled. "You worked harder."
"That's not it." The man's eyes stayed on the horizon. "I was different every year. You're not."
Silence settled between them, thick but not hostile.
Daniel didn't deny it.
He had stopped changing years ago. Not entirely—his body still adjusted, refined, strengthened—but the kind of change people expected never came. His reflection looked the same in shop windows it had five summers ago. His hands never roughened beyond a certain point. His eyes never dulled.
The man exhaled slowly. "People will start asking the wrong questions."
Daniel nodded.
"Doesn't mean they'd hurt you," the man went on. "But they'd try to explain you. That's worse."
That night, the woman packed him food without being asked. Bread wrapped in cloth. A thermos filled and sealed tight. She pressed a jacket into his hands—newer than the rest of his things.
"For the road," she said.
Daniel stood awkwardly in the doorway, the house behind him warm with familiar sounds. He wanted to say something permanent. Something that would make leaving less incomplete.
Instead, he hugged her.
She held on longer than necessary. Then let go first.
"Write if you can," she said, knowing he wouldn't.
"I will," he lied gently.
He left before dawn.
The bus station smelled like oil and old coffee. Neon buzzed overhead. The world beyond the town felt looser somehow, less invested in who he had been yesterday. He bought a ticket without caring where it went.
When the bus pulled away, Daniel watched the town shrink through the dirty glass until it became a shape instead of a place.
Something inside him tightened.
Not regret.
Alignment.
Cities taught him faster lessons.
In cities, no one watched you long enough to notice patterns. Faces blurred. Time accelerated. People disappeared every day for reasons that never made the news. He worked jobs that asked for effort but not history. Construction. Warehouses. Night shifts where names mattered less than reliability.
He learned how to live lightly.
He learned which questions to answer and which ones to let die in the air. He learned that strength was not impressive when it was expected—and dangerous when it was not. He learned to fail convincingly.
And slowly, without ceremony, he realized something else.
Time was leaving him behind.
It happened in reflections first. A shop window, a restroom mirror, the dark glass of a train at night. He would catch himself mid-motion and feel the disconnect—the way his face remained while the world rearranged itself around him.
He kept track, at first.
Years. Addresses. Jobs.
Then he stopped counting.
Because the numbers were no longer useful.
One evening, sitting alone on the steps of an apartment building while the city cooled itself after a long summer day, Daniel watched a man across the street struggle with a grocery bag. The man cursed softly when a carton split and oranges spilled onto the sidewalk.
Daniel stood automatically.
He moved quickly—too quickly—catching fruit before it rolled into traffic, returning it with a nod and a smile that asked for no thanks.
The man stared at him for a beat too long.
"You move like you don't feel the weight," the man said.
Daniel smiled again. Smaller this time.
"Practice."
The man laughed, shook his head, and went inside.
Daniel stayed where he was.
That night, under a sky washed dull by city light, he accepted the truth he had been circling since childhood.
He was not meant to stay.
Places were chapters.
People were anchors.
Time was a current that did not pull him the way it pulled others.
And power—real power—was not the ability to act.
It was the discipline to wait.
He would move on again. He always would.
But now, he understood why.