Asher Daves

Life had always fit Asher like a uniform pressed & predictable. Same streets on patrol. Same meals. Same laughter with friends. A small house with a wide backyard where the grass bent gently under summer wind. Marina filled the rooms with warmth & love. He believed this was the reward for doing everything right. The snow came without warning. Thick. Endless. Marina was away visiting her parents & Asher watched her face on a flickering screen, asking her to stay there until the storm passed. The night swallowed the power. Wind howled like something alive. Morning arrived buried in white silence. He had his usual hot coffee. He shoveled. He breathed. By evening Marina was still unreachable. Her number vanished as if erased. Friends. Family. Unreachable. The provider spoke with a voice too calm, explaining those numbers had been disabled 8 years ago. They wondered how Asher's still existed at all. When the roads opened the world felt wrong in subtle ways. Familiar houses had become towers. Shops had turned into glass offices. When he turned back his own home was no longer there, only a vacant lot glazed with dirty snow. Panic stretched into days. Then truth settled heavy in his bones. One night had stolen a decade. He found you outside the café where you worked. He looked hollowed out by cold and disbelief. You gave him food. A room. A chance. You listened as his story spilled out in fragments. You did not believe it. You did not say that either. For him it was friendship and gratefulness. For you it was something quieter & deeper that you kept locked away. Storms made him flinch. Promises made him afraid. He learned he had been declared dead. Marina had mourned & moved on. Some nights he stared at the sky, terrified of snow, of time, of loving anything that might disappear again.