Elior woke with a start, the alarm clock blaring in his ears. His eyes were heavy, the edges of sleep still clinging to him. He glanced at the time and froze. Seven forty-five. He had planned to wake at six. The sunlight spilling through the curtains was brighter than usual, cutting across the room in harsh lines. He had overslept.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the notebook on his desk. The Rules. They had seemed so solid yesterday. Written in his own hand, ordered, complete. He reached for it and flipped to the page, scanning the lines carefully. The world ends every seven days. The green aurora appears first. I am always at the same place. Never go near that location. He read it twice, then three times, muttering the words under his breath as if repeating them would summon the urgency back.
And yet, the words felt distant. He could recite them, but their weight had slipped somewhere in his mind. A flicker of doubt, almost imperceptible, but there. The thought that he could ignore the rules for a little while, just this once, crept in like a shadow.
He rubbed his face and sighed. Discipline, he told himself. That was the answer. He needed to follow the plan. He got up, dressed carefully in neutral colors, and left the apartment. The city was alive, the streets busy with morning routines. He walked past the bakery, the same one he had visited the week before, and noticed a man struggling with a broken bicycle chain.
Elior paused. The Rules said avoid complications. Avoid the streets that might pull him toward the location. Avoid unnecessary interactions.
The man looked frustrated, muttering under his breath. Elior hesitated. Then he said, quietly, "Do you want some help?"
The man looked up, surprised. "Oh, uh, yeah. I guess I could use a hand."
Elior crouched and examined the chain. It was simple enough. He tightened a bolt and adjusted the derailleur. "There," he said. "Try it now."
The man pedaled cautiously around the corner and waved. "Thanks. Really."
Elior nodded and continued walking. A small pang of guilt stirred inside him. He had broken his own discipline just to do something ordinary. But it felt right at the time. The Rules had been written to keep him safe, but safety and rightness were not always the same.
He passed a newsstand and a young girl ran past him, clutching a balloon that twisted in the morning wind. Her laughter made him pause for a moment. He wondered if she would remember this day in ten years. He wondered if he would remember this day tomorrow.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue, a woman waved at him. He recognized her as Mrs. Fenton, a neighbor who walked her dog every morning.
"Good morning, Elior," she said, her voice warm. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
"Yes," he replied. "It is."
"Going anywhere special?" she asked.
"Just walking," he said. He hesitated. "Just enjoying the morning."
She smiled and continued on her route. Elior watched her go and felt a strange twinge in his chest. It was ordinary, mundane, and yet the thought that he might be forgetting something urgent made his stomach twist.
He turned into a narrow alley to avoid a crowd gathering at a café. There, a man had dropped a bag of groceries. Tomatoes rolled across the cobblestones. Elior knelt to pick them up.
"Thanks," the man said, fumbling with the rest of the items. "I appreciate it."
"No problem," Elior said, handing over the last tomato.
Walking away, he felt the rules slipping further. They existed on the page in his notebook, but they were not commanding him anymore. The urgency he had relied on yesterday had dulled. He could feel it like a fading echo in his chest.
Elior reached the park. He had avoided this corner all week, fearing its familiarity. But now, something about the boy flying a paper airplane, the way the sunlight caught the leaves, made him feel lighter. He sat on a bench, leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment. He remembered the green aurora, the end, the pressure. But it was muted. Almost distant.
"Hey," a voice said. Elior opened his eyes. A teenager stood in front of him, holding a notebook. "Do you mind helping me with this?"
He looked at the pages. They were sketches of trees, buildings, and streets. The boy pointed to one corner. "I cannot get the perspective right. It looks off."
Elior studied it. "You are too close to the vanishing point. Step back a little."
The boy adjusted his position. Elior leaned in and guided his pencil gently along the lines. "Better," he said. "Now try shading."
"Wow, thanks!" the boy said. "You actually know what you are doing."
Elior smiled faintly. "I practiced."
As the boy ran off, Elior felt the pull again. Not a force, not a physical tug, but the faint tug of consequence, the knowledge that each small decision led somewhere. Each act of kindness, each minor distraction, each seemingly ordinary choice was moving him along a path. He shook his head and whispered to himself, "Discipline. Focus. Stick to the plan."
But the pull would not release him. At the corner of the park, a woman struggled to carry a stroller down the steps. Elior walked over, without thinking too much, and offered his assistance. She smiled, thanked him, and continued on her way. Each step he took felt reasonable, even necessary. The Rules did not warn him about kindness. They warned him about the streets, the locations, the timing. But these small deviations, these ordinary distractions, were enough to blur his memory further.
By mid-afternoon, he had forgotten the Rules in detail. The notebook remained in his bag, but the urgency it contained had dissolved into words without teeth. He remembered vaguely that he was supposed to avoid something, somewhere. But it felt distant, almost like a story he had read long ago.
He stopped at a small café, ordering a cup of tea. The barista, a young woman named Clara, looked at him curiously.
"You look tired," she said.
"I am," Elior replied. "It has been a long week."
"Rough week for everyone, I guess," she said. "Want a scone too?"
He nodded, taking the scone along with the tea. Sitting by the window, he watched people pass by, unaware of the invisible countdown that existed only in his head. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that he was not in control. Not really. He had tried to discipline himself, to plan, to stick to the Rules, and yet the world had moved on without him needing to follow them. The pull toward the location, the inevitability of the green aurora, existed outside of rational planning.
"Excuse me," a voice said. Elior looked up. A young woman was standing there with a small child. "Can you help me? My daughter dropped her toy in the fountain, and I cannot reach it."
Elior paused. He considered his notebook, the Rules, the precise steps he had taken to avoid the street where the end had occurred. And then he saw the child, reaching desperately for a small plastic boat that floated on the water.
Without thinking, he walked over. "It is okay. I will get it," he said. He leaned over and retrieved the toy. The girl smiled, hugging it tightly.
"Thank you," the mother said. "You are very kind."
Elior smiled faintly. "No problem."
As he walked away, the memory of the warning came back, but it was weak. A whisper on the edge of his consciousness. Never go near that location. The street name, the angles, the patterns. They surfaced in his mind only for a brief second, then dissolved again. He felt a cold twinge of recognition, but it lacked urgency. He told himself it did not matter. He had avoided danger all week. He could keep going.
He continued walking, helping a man pick up papers that had blown from a briefcase, holding the door for a woman carrying groceries, guiding a blind man across the street for a block. Each small act felt logical, reasonable, harmless. Each reinforced the sense that he was making good choices, that he was not heading toward anything dangerous.
And yet the pull remained, quiet but persistent. It did not scream. It did not demand. It whispered through the choices he made, through the reasons he found for stepping out, for helping, for wandering the city. Every act of kindness, every moment of distraction, was pulling him closer. Not physically, but through consequence. The Rules, the discipline, the careful planning had become fragile threads against a tide of inevitability.
By evening, he found himself near the park again. The sun was lowering in the sky, the colors warm and soft. He felt calm, almost at peace. The world seemed normal. Ordinary. Safe. He sat on the bench for a while, sipping water from a bottle he had bought earlier. He tried to remember the Rule that mattered, the one that had guided him before.
Never go near that location.
The words returned faintly, like the echo of a distant conversation. He could see the street in his mind, the lamppost, the cracks in the pavement, the angle of the sunlight. But it was unclear, muted by the day's small distractions and minor interventions. It did not feel urgent. It did not feel necessary.
He whispered to himself, "I will not go there. I will not."
A child's laugh rang from nearby. Elior turned and saw a little boy chasing a ball, his face bright with joy. Something in him softened. He forgot the urgency, the rules, the warnings. The pull toward the location remained, invisible and patient, but he could not feel it now. He could not see it clearly.
Elior closed his eyes, leaning back on the bench, and let the warmth of the evening sun wash over him. Discipline had failed, not in principle, but in practice. Memory alone could not protect him. The Rules were fragile, human, imperfect. They could be forgotten, diluted by ordinary life, blurred by small acts of kindness and distraction. He had tried to control his world, to manage it, and yet the inevitable had already begun to guide him through small, reasonable steps he could not resist.
He opened his eyes and looked around. The city continued, ordinary and indifferent. He could not feel the pressure, the aurora, the wrongness. He could not sense it yet. But he knew, in the quietest part of his mind, that forgetting today would change everything tomorrow.
And for the first time, Elior understood that the enemy was not the green sky. It was his own mind, willing and human, fragile and distracted. Memory was no longer a safeguard. Awareness was no longer enough. Choice was already slipping through his fingers.
He did not know it yet, but the steps he had taken that day, small and reasonable, kind and helpful, had already set him on the path toward the unavoidable.