Atlas wakes up, drags his laptop to himself from his bedside table, and finds no replies on his frantic late-night post. It's noon. 

He stands from the bed, moves to the window, and looks down at his telescope set up two floors below on the grass. Still there, still intact, angled at the exact same degree he left it. The metal lining its optical tube and tripod legs glints bright in the sun. 

His gaze fixated on the telescope, faintly aware of the sky above and the celestial body now rotated out of sight, Atlas presses his left thumb to his right wrist. The pulse under his skin is quick, high above its resting rate. He's used to waking up like this, but only after a nightmare. If he had dreams last night of any kind, he doesn't remember them. 

As he's brushing his teeth, idly watching the doorway of his bathroom through the reflection of the mirror, he sees it. There is the faintest silhouette of something partially visible behind the door frame. He blinks, and it disappears in the same fashion the colour had drained from the moon the previous night. 

Atlas spends a while at the sink eying the circular holes of its drain after he's rinsed his mouth. It hadn't been truly full, but it hadn't been a crescent, either; in waning, perhaps, the light of the sun not entirely reflected off its gaze.

He is still in that position, the top of his hair grazing the mouth of the tap, when he becomes aware of the touch ghosting across his arms, his hands that grip the porcelain edges of the sink. He narrowly avoids giving himself a nasty dent in his skull as he raises his head and dares not look in the mirror again as he turns and bolts from the bathroom. The sensation lingers. 

Back in his bedroom, Atlas backs up against the wall furthest from the door, breathes in, and breathes out. The tenant downstairs is off on a business trip. His work for the week is done, so there's no numbers to distract him through the weekend. He does not want to look through the pictures he's taken recently.

The room dims suddenly. He's neglected to turn on the ceiling fluorescents. The window through which he intended to let the daylight in is no longer serving its purpose.

He draws his gaze up and looks. In the dark he can barely just make it out – the shadow smothers the glass of the window completely. Its edges fray in a way that makes the whole construct look like a wisp of smoke, a fabric of the universe with its seams ripped out. His brain tells him this thing is alive – more specifically, it is aware of his existence.

Atlas takes an involuntary step towards the window, his right hand twitching to open it, and then he turns tail and skids down the stairs, past the vacant home of his apartment neighbour, out onto the street.

* 

No one's thought to stop him yet. He's turned ten, eleven corners, mapping out a route of the city so directionless it probably hasn't ever been taken. He figured he'd stop after the first two, but then he'd seen it in the puddles left by the early morning rain, afterimages between his shoes and around his reflection, and he'd kept on going. 

Atlas pauses for breath by a stairwell of some building he's not familiar with, holding onto the handrail and trying to not to hurl, bracing his back against the metal and scanning the area. No signs of anything amiss. 

The building doesn't seem to be in use. He makes a slow climb up the stairs following the direction of its ROOF ACCESS sign. If he squints from up here, leaning over the banister, he can see his apartment. The sun has mellowed enough that he can afford staring up at the sky — there, a distance from the clouds, is the faint imprint of the moon. Still grey.

There's a tap on his shoulder. 

He turns and the shadow is there, swirling, reforming into a figure he easily perceives as humanoid. His back is to the railing of the roof. The shadow has no eyes to speak of, no face, but Atlas picks up immediately that its next words are said in its own tongue. 

The shadow tells him, "I've missed you." 

Atlas, still fighting paralysis, though for a different reason now, says: "What?" but, too late, there are already tears in his eyes, "You– You– "

He has never heard the shadow's voice before; he would recognise it anywhere. It scuttles through his ears into his brain and settles in his neurons, the synapses between them transmitting information he has known forever. He feels the swipe of a thumb across his cheekbone, over the ridge of his nose. His vision is cleared of the blur of moisture, the remnant tears cool on his face. Atlas says, grasping for straws, "The moon– "

"We are on borrowed time," it interrupts him, gently. "Listen."

He never did listen. He does now. He nods, swallowing, and lets his field of vision be consumed by the dark. He is physically still on the roof, but mentally no longer. 

It says, "I wanted us to have a proper goodbye." It pauses. "Well, first I wanted to say – I'm happy you've picked up astronomy. I never managed to properly drag you into it before I..."

"It helped me," Atlas says, the words spilling themselves, "I thought– I wanted to know what you were always so interested in, looking up there, at the stars, I wanted to relive– I guess, relive you– "

"Good, ‘cause I wasn't sure if you'd notice. If you'd look." It gives the impression of a smile. "I needed to hold your attention, enough so I could slip back into your timeline. It was a clear night, so I thought, well... Anyway, sorry it wasn't really blue." 

He stares back at the shadow, wide-eyed, and it says: 

"Um, sorry I scared you with the window, too. I wanted to prove– I tried to alter your environment so you knew I wasn't a figment of your imagination."

"But, the timeline–?" 

"Oh, right," it says, sheepish, "I know I told you I wanted to be an astronaut, but since I've been gone I got more into the physics of everything. Suffice to say you can only perceive me in a few very specific ways – I won't explain the mechanics to you now, but–"

The shadow stops speaking when Atlas wraps it in a hug. He's got his eyes shut so he's not sure what exactly happens, but perceptually he's embracing a tangible being, if a little amorphous. He says, muffled against where its chest would be, "You're gonna say you can't stick around, aren't you?"

"You're not going to ask where I've been, how I'm here, how's the afterlife?" 

He hugs it harder. "Answer the question." 

It sighs. There are hands on his back. "I've got about 24 hours." 

Atlas is quiet for a moment, and then he says, "Alright." And, "It's been a few years." 

"You haven't grown taller." 

He punches the shadow lightly in the shoulder, his eyes still screwed shut, stinging, the physicality of it all relative, and he takes its hand and wordlessly leads it down the stairs. 

*

The following night. Atlas looks through the telescope again, moon still in waning –

– and there's the tiniest web of thin fractures on the lens, formed in the shape of a heart.