Chapter 5: The Man Who Wasn't Missing

Chapter 5: The Man Who Wasn't Missing

The bell above the convenience store door finished its cheerful, tinny jingle, leaving behind a silence punctuated only by the hum of a beverage cooler and Alex’s own ragged breathing. He clung to his grandfather’s arm, the rough texture of the tweed jacket a grounding, tangible proof that this was real. Tears of relief streamed down his face, hot and cleansing. The weeks of terror, the sleepless nights, the constant, gnawing paranoia—it was all washing away in this single, miraculous moment.

“Grandpa,” he gasped again, the word a prayer of thanks. “I was so scared. We all were. The police… the flyers… I didn’t know what to do.”

Arthur Thorne’s familiar blue eyes, the ones that had always been a bastion of safety for Alex, were wide with a deep and profound confusion. He gently placed his free hand over Alex’s, his touch warm and real, but his expression was all wrong. It wasn’t the tearful relief of a man rescued from a nightmare; it was the cautious concern one shows to someone who has become suddenly, frighteningly unwell.

“Alex? Son, what on earth are you talking about?” His voice was the same gravelly rumble, but it was laced with an edge of alarm. “Take a breath. You’re white as a sheet. Did you have another one of those panic attacks?”

The question was so jarring, so out of place, that it momentarily stemmed Alex’s flood of emotion. “What? No. I’m talking about you! You’ve been missing! For weeks! You were at the house, tying your shoe, and you just… you vanished.”

He was babbling, the words tumbling out in a disorganized rush, but he had to make him understand. He had to bridge the gap of whatever had happened.

The cashier, a young man with a bored expression, watched them with mild interest. Arthur gave him an apologetic glance before turning his full attention back to Alex, his brow furrowed in genuine worry.

“Missing?” Arthur repeated slowly, as if tasting a foreign word. “Alex, I was never missing.”

The floor seemed to tilt beneath Alex’s feet. The hum of the cooler grew louder, more menacing. “Yes, you were! Mom and Dad have been devastated. We filed a report. I’ve been searching for you every single day!”

Then, his grandfather delivered the blow. It wasn’t a shout or an argument. It was a simple, factual statement, delivered with the calm certainty of a man stating his own name.

“Alex, we just left the house not ten minutes ago,” he said, his voice gentle. “We were driving over to your parents’ for dinner. You were following me in your car. We stopped for gas, and you said you’d forgotten your wallet and would run back to grab it. You told me you’d meet me here.”

The words didn't compute. They were random noise, a sentence from a language Alex didn't speak. He stared at his grandfather, at the sincere, loving concern in his eyes, and a new kind of terror, colder and deeper than any he had yet known, began to bloom in the pit of his stomach. It was the icy dread of fundamental wrongness.

“No,” Alex whispered, shaking his head. “No, that’s not what happened. That’s… that’s not right.”

He let go of his grandfather’s arm as if he’d been burned. He scrambled for his phone, his hands shaking so violently he almost dropped it. He had to find proof. A text message to his mom about the search. A call log from the police. Something. Anything to anchor him to the reality he remembered.

He swiped through his messages, his heart hammering against his ribs. The frantic texts were gone. The worried calls to his friends’ parents were gone. In their place were mundane messages. A text from his mother from an hour ago: Don’t be late for dinner! Gramps is already on his way over. A reply from him: Ok, leaving now.

He didn’t remember sending that. He couldn’t have sent that. He had been on the other side of town, taping up missing person flyers.

His gaze flickered up from the phone screen to the store’s window. Outside, the gas station was just a gas station. The alleyway was just a dark strip of asphalt between two buildings. But now, the memory of the Shadow Figure replayed in his mind, and its actions were cast in a terrifying new light.

It hadn't been trying to keep him away from his grandfather. It hadn’t been a monster guarding its prey.

It had been a warden. A guardian. It was standing on the seam between worlds, trying to stop him from crossing over. It wasn't barring him from his salvation; it was trying to prevent him from stumbling into a deeper, more insidious damnation. And in his desperate, joyful sprint, he had broken right past it. He had forced his way through the tear in reality.

He hadn’t brought his grandfather back.

He had followed him.

“Are you alright, son?” Arthur asked, taking a hesitant step toward him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I am the ghost, Alex thought, a wave of vertigo washing over him. He was the anomaly here. The misplaced piece. He leaned against a chip rack, the crinkling of the bags a flimsy, artificial sound. He had to be sure. He had to ask the one question that would shatter his last fragile hope.

“What about Max and Chloe?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Arthur’s expression softened with sympathy. “Ah, that’s probably what has you so rattled. It’s tough when your best friends leave the country. But don’t you worry, that backpacking trip through Europe is the adventure of a lifetime for them. They’ll be back before you know it, full of stories.” He chuckled, a warm, familiar sound that was now the most horrifying thing Alex had ever heard. “You know, your mother and I were just saying how much we’ll miss having them around for the holidays.”

The relief Alex had felt just minutes before now seemed like a distant, naive memory from another life. In this world, Max and Chloe hadn't vanished into a nightmare building. They hadn't been replaced by soulless, black-eyed things in an elevator. They were fine. They were on vacation. The wound that had defined Alex’s existence for weeks didn’t even exist here. There was no mystery to solve, no friends to save. There was no loss to mourn.

He looked at the man before him. He wore his grandfather’s tweed jacket. He had his grandfather’s kind, crinkled eyes. He spoke with his grandfather’s gravelly voice. He was, by every conceivable measure, Arthur Thorne. But he was not his Arthur Thorne. His grandfather was the man who had vanished while tying his shoe, a man lost to a glitch in the universe. This man was a stranger who shared his face and name, a man who belonged to a world where Alex himself was the only thing out of place.

He hadn't found the man who was missing.

He had become the man who didn't belong.