26:I[86215,["6446","static/chunks/53c13509-e7ec011f8ac7df7d.js","6711","static/chunks/8e1d74a4-841e61b20d784c5f.js","2266","static/chunks/870fdd6f-d81c5e21b0b96e34.js","5802","static/chunks/69b09407-1ce59c69e508049d.js","8500","static/chunks/8500-01a63dafd809e317.js","8437","static/chunks/8437-39ef04864806a0fa.js","6659","static/chunks/6659-a0fca0b5b95eb832.js","1610","static/chunks/1610-af6f888fe3ea871a.js","2100","static/chunks/2100-768a05088f320fce.js","6499","static/chunks/6499-3139357d7362d8fa.js","601","static/chunks/601-42518cde4342bee4.js","7663","static/chunks/7663-36eadf9c83563138.js","7870","static/chunks/7870-f026ded79a9a89b4.js","9891","static/chunks/9891-388cf3487c4bfb5e.js","2454","static/chunks/2454-11d335ce6901e263.js","7782","static/chunks/7782-4f8509118ce25d3b.js","1628","static/chunks/app/story/%5Bslug%5D/page-c4ed111418a82338.js"],"default"] 27:I[62454,["6446","static/chunks/53c13509-e7ec011f8ac7df7d.js","6711","static/chunks/8e1d74a4-841e61b20d784c5f.js","2266","static/chunks/870fdd6f-d81c5e21b0b96e34.js","5802","static/chunks/69b09407-1ce59c69e508049d.js","8500","static/chunks/8500-01a63dafd809e317.js","8437","static/chunks/8437-39ef04864806a0fa.js","6659","static/chunks/6659-a0fca0b5b95eb832.js","1610","static/chunks/1610-af6f888fe3ea871a.js","2100","static/chunks/2100-768a05088f320fce.js","6499","static/chunks/6499-3139357d7362d8fa.js","601","static/chunks/601-42518cde4342bee4.js","7663","static/chunks/7663-36eadf9c83563138.js","7870","static/chunks/7870-f026ded79a9a89b4.js","9891","static/chunks/9891-388cf3487c4bfb5e.js","2454","static/chunks/2454-11d335ce6901e263.js","7782","static/chunks/7782-4f8509118ce25d3b.js","1628","static/chunks/app/story/%5Bslug%5D/page-c4ed111418a82338.js"],"default"] 30:I[86869,[],"IconMark"] 28:T1543,

Gary Hargreaves let himself into the house a little after half past five, easing the door closed with the careful habit of a man who lived alone and preferred it quiet. The terrace had the familiar late-afternoon smell of Wolverhampton in wet weather—carpet that had seen too many winters, yesterday’s washing drying slowly over a radiator, the faint mineral tang of rain drifting in through the trickle vents above the windows.

He hung his jacket on the back of the kitchen chair and stood there for a moment, hands on the counter, letting the silence settle.

Forty-two years old, he thought, and this is the grand procession of it.

The warehouse shift had been the usual sort of thing: pallets, labels, a forklift whining somewhere in the distance like an irritated insect. Four hours of it. Not difficult work. Not especially interesting either. But it paid enough.

He filled the kettle from the tap and switched it on.

What would be the point of going full-time? he thought.

He said it half aloud, the way people sometimes did when they lived by themselves.

“What would be the point, eh?”

The kettle hummed quietly.

Full-time meant more money, of course. More hours, more responsibility, more of the same concrete floor beneath fluorescent lights. But the sums didn’t really demand it. The rent was manageable, the council tax predictable, and the rest of his life required surprisingly little.

I pay my bills, he told himself.

And then he caught the thought before it finished forming.

Well… maybe if you were full-time, you could travel.

He stood there with the mug halfway to the cupboard.

Travel.

“Travel where, exactly?” he said to the empty kitchen.

The kettle clicked off.

He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.

“When’s the last time you travelled, mate?”

The answer came quickly enough.

Never.

Not properly. Not anywhere that required planning. He vaguely remembered his mother arranging a passport for him once, thirty years ago perhaps, when there had been some talk of a cheap holiday in Spain. The trip had never happened. The passport had expired quietly in a drawer somewhere.

He had never left the United Kingdom.

Not once in forty-two years.

Gary snorted to himself and reached for a teabag.

“Get a hold of yourself.”

Travel, honestly.

The rain had begun again outside, soft and steady against the windows. Across the street the brick terraces sat in their usual damp procession beneath a sky the colour of old aluminium.

He carried the mug into the small front room and sat down at the computer.

The machine woke slowly, as though it too had just come home from work.

Emails waited in the corner of the screen. Nothing urgent, nothing personal. Newsletters, delivery confirmations, the routine digital clutter of modern life.

Gary clicked through them lazily.

One subject line made him pause.

Missoula Archery Club – Weekend Practice Reminder

He frowned.

Advertising, probably.

Marketers had a habit of scooping up addresses from anywhere they could find them. He had seen stranger things arrive in his inbox before. But when he opened the message, the tone was oddly familiar.

Hi Frank,

Just a reminder that weekend practice is this Saturday afternoon. The range will be open from 2pm. Weather looks clear and we’re expecting a good turnout.

See you there.

Gary blinked at the screen.

Frank?

He checked the address line again.

Only his email address, no other cc'd in.

“Right,” he murmured.

Wrong mailing list, then.

He was about to delete it when another message slid into the inbox above it.

Missoula Swim Club – Lane Reservations

Gary clicked that one too, curiosity getting the better of him.

Hi Frank,

Lane reservations for this week are now open. Evening sessions tend to fill quickly, so make sure to book ahead if you’re planning to swim.

See you at the pool.

Gary leaned back in the chair.

Frank, archery clubs, swimming pools—apparently all of it taking place in a town called Missoula that he was fairly certain he had never even heard of before today.

He hovered the mouse over the delete button.

Spam, obviously.

Still, the messages had a strange specificity to them. They weren’t trying to sell anything. They weren’t even asking for anything. Just reminders, as though whoever Frank was had a perfectly ordinary social life somewhere in ... Missoula?

Gary closed the email and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Strange.”

Outside, a car rolled slowly through the rain.

He was just about to shut the laptop when his mobile phone rang on the table beside him.

The number was unfamiliar. International, by the look of it.

Gary stared at the screen for a moment, puzzled.

Then he answered.

“Hello?”

There was a brief hiss of static on the line.

And then a woman’s voice—warm, relaxed, unmistakably American.

“Hi, Frank,” she said. “How you been doing?”

Gary opened his mouth.

And for a second he didn’t say anything at all.

29:T1543,

He hung his jacket on the back of the kitchen chair and stood there for a moment, hands on the counter, letting the silence settle.

Forty-two years old, he thought, and this is the grand procession of it.

He filled the kettle from the tap and switched it on.

What would be the point of going full-time? he thought.

He said it half aloud, the way people sometimes did when they lived by themselves.

“What would be the point, eh?”

The kettle hummed quietly.

I pay my bills, he told himself.

And then he caught the thought before it finished forming.

Well… maybe if you were full-time, you could travel.

He stood there with the mug halfway to the cupboard.

Travel.

“Travel where, exactly?” he said to the empty kitchen.

The kettle clicked off.

He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.

“When’s the last time you travelled, mate?”

The answer came quickly enough.

Never.

He had never left the United Kingdom.

Not once in forty-two years.

Gary snorted to himself and reached for a teabag.

“Get a hold of yourself.”

Travel, honestly.

The rain had begun again outside, soft and steady against the windows. Across the street the brick terraces sat in their usual damp procession beneath a sky the colour of old aluminium.

He carried the mug into the small front room and sat down at the computer.

The machine woke slowly, as though it too had just come home from work.

Emails waited in the corner of the screen. Nothing urgent, nothing personal. Newsletters, delivery confirmations, the routine digital clutter of modern life.

Gary clicked through them lazily.

One subject line made him pause.

Missoula Archery Club – Weekend Practice Reminder

He frowned.

Advertising, probably.

Marketers had a habit of scooping up addresses from anywhere they could find them. He had seen stranger things arrive in his inbox before. But when he opened the message, the tone was oddly familiar.

Hi Frank,

Just a reminder that weekend practice is this Saturday afternoon. The range will be open from 2pm. Weather looks clear and we’re expecting a good turnout.

See you there.

Gary blinked at the screen.

Frank?

He checked the address line again.

Only his email address, no other cc'd in.

“Right,” he murmured.

Wrong mailing list, then.

He was about to delete it when another message slid into the inbox above it.

Missoula Swim Club – Lane Reservations

Gary clicked that one too, curiosity getting the better of him.

Hi Frank,

Lane reservations for this week are now open. Evening sessions tend to fill quickly, so make sure to book ahead if you’re planning to swim.

See you at the pool.

Gary leaned back in the chair.

Frank, archery clubs, swimming pools—apparently all of it taking place in a town called Missoula that he was fairly certain he had never even heard of before today.

He hovered the mouse over the delete button.

Spam, obviously.

Gary closed the email and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Strange.”

Outside, a car rolled slowly through the rain.

He was just about to shut the laptop when his mobile phone rang on the table beside him.

The number was unfamiliar. International, by the look of it.

Gary stared at the screen for a moment, puzzled.

Then he answered.

“Hello?”

There was a brief hiss of static on the line.

And then a woman’s voice—warm, relaxed, unmistakably American.

“Hi, Frank,” she said. “How you been doing?”

Gary opened his mouth.

And for a second he didn’t say anything at all.

2a:T16e7,

“I’m… alright.”

Gary heard the hesitation in his own voice and hoped it hadn’t carried too clearly down the line.

“How’s it going yourself?”

There was a soft rush of air on the other end, the faint background noise of someone walking somewhere outdoors.

“Could be better,” the woman said. Her voice had that easy, unhurried American cadence he had only ever heard in films and the occasional documentary. “I was planning to take a hike this afternoon. Just a little walk up in the hills. But the weather’s looking pretty foul.”

Gary glanced automatically at the rain sliding down his windows.

“So I might just put an extra day in at the pool instead,” she continued.

He blinked.

“Oh,” Gary said carefully. “That’s cool. You mean the Missoula pool, right?”

There was a brief pause.

Then a small laugh.

“Well… what other pool is there, Frank?”

Gary felt something tighten pleasantly in his chest. Not dread. Something stranger than that. A kind of electric curiosity.

“You okay today?” she added. “You seem a little off.”

“Oh,” Gary said quickly. “That’s just my attempt at humour.”

“O…kay…”

The word lingered slightly, as though she were smiling while saying it.

“I feel like I caught you at a bad moment.”

“Well,” Gary said, rubbing the back of his neck, “you’ve caught me at a weird moment, let’s say that.”

Another pause.

Then her voice changed slightly—sudden movement, the muffled distraction of something happening nearby.

“Oh—Frank, I’ve got to go.”

Gary straightened a little in the chair.

“What’s—”

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Someone’s at the door. I’m in a bit of a rush.”

He opened his mouth again, but she was already halfway out of the conversation.

“Talk later, okay? I love you.”

The line went dead.

Gary sat there with the phone still in his hand.

The room was quiet again. Rain tapping the windows, a car passing slowly outside, the dull hum of the computer fan on the desk.

“I love…you?” he repeated softly.

He placed the phone down and stared at it for a moment.

“What the hell was that?”

For a while he didn’t move at all.

Then, with a slow deliberate motion, he turned back to the computer.

Missoula.

He typed the word into the search bar.

The results appeared instantly. A town somewhere in the western United States, apparently. Mountains. Rivers. Photographs of wide skies and pine-covered slopes.

Gary leaned closer to the screen.

“Right,” he murmured.

He tried again.

Missoula swimming pool

More results appeared. A municipal pool building. Indoor lanes, bright overhead lights reflecting across pale blue water.

Gary clicked one of the images.

It opened into a larger photograph: long quiet lanes, white tiles, the shimmering echo of indoor acoustics almost visible in the still image.

He frowned slightly.

“That looks real enough.”

Next he typed:

Missoula archery club

That existed too. A small outdoor range somewhere just outside the town. Targets in a line beneath open sky.

Gary sat back in the chair.

“Well,” he said quietly.

He drummed his fingers once against the desk.

Then typed again.

Frank Missoula archery club swimming club

Several ordinary results appeared. Social media fragments, scattered mentions of people with that name.

And then one entry near the top of the page:

Frank Calder — YouTube

Gary hesitated for a moment.

Then clicked.

The channel page opened.

The banner image showed a quiet stretch of hillside above a small town. The sort of view you might find almost anywhere in the American west.

Beneath it sat a modest profile picture: a man about Gary’s age standing beside a river, squinting slightly into the sun.

Gary leaned forward.

“Right,” he murmured again.

The channel statistics appeared just below.

27 subscribers.

Gary blinked.

The video tab was open.

517 videos.

He scrolled down.

Each video thumbnail showed some small fragment of a life.

Morning Walk Above Missoula

Swim Club — Quiet Night

Archery Practice — Windy Afternoon

The view counts were tiny.

Eleven views.

Fourteen views.

Eight views.

Gary clicked one at random.

The video opened.

The man from the profile picture appeared, adjusting the camera on what looked like a bench beside a swimming pool. Bright lights reflected across the water behind him.

“Evening swim tonight,” the man said casually to the camera. “Pool’s pretty quiet.”

Gary watched him slip into the lane and begin swimming slow steady laps.

The video was oddly calming.

No music. No editing. Just the quiet sound of water and distant echoes inside the building.

Gary clicked another.

Then another.

An archery range.

The same man drawing a bow beneath a pale sky.

“Not my best shooting today,” he said to the camera. “Wind’s coming down off the hills.”

Gary found himself leaning forward slightly.

“Right,” he murmured.

He scrolled back up to the top of the page.

Something there caught his eye.

A small grey button beneath the channel name.

Gary frowned.

He leaned closer to the screen.

Next to the bell icon, a single word was already visible.

Subscribed.

2b:T1a1d,

Gary didn’t sleep especially well that night.

Not because anything was wrong, exactly. He simply found his mind returning, again and again, to the small YouTube channel glowing on the computer screen.

Frank Calder.

Five hundred and seventeen videos.

Twenty-seven subscribers.

And, for reasons Gary still couldn’t quite explain to himself, one of those subscribers appeared to be him.

By the following evening he found himself sitting at the computer again, the rain tapping gently against his windows while the channel page opened once more in front of him.

“Well,” he said quietly.

He pressed play.

The first video was much the same as the others he had seen the night before. Frank stood beside the indoor pool, adjusting the camera so that it balanced precariously against a bench.

“Evening swim tonight,” Frank said, squinting slightly at the lens. “Looks like it’s going to be quiet.”

Gary watched him slide into the water and begin a slow series of laps.

The video had no music, no clever editing, none of the usual tricks people used to keep viewers interested. Just the soft slap of water against the tiles and the faint echo of voices somewhere deeper in the building.

It was oddly calming.

Gary clicked another.

This one took place at the archery range he had already seen in the search results earlier. A line of targets stood in the open air while Frank stepped back from the camera and lifted a bow.

“Wind’s coming down off the hills today,” he said conversationally. “Makes it a little tricky.”

He loosed an arrow.

The shot landed just outside the centre of the target.

“Not terrible,” Frank said.

Gary leaned back slightly in the chair.

“You’re alright,” he murmured.

Another video began.

This time Frank was walking along a narrow trail somewhere above the town. Pines moved gently in the breeze and the camera swayed slightly with each step.

“Bit cloudy today,” Frank said, glancing back toward the lens. “But it’s still good hiking weather.”

Gary clicked again.

And again.

He watched Frank swim.

He watched him shoot arrows.

He watched him wander along quiet paths in the hills above a place called Missoula.

After a while Gary became dimly aware that he had been sitting there for nearly an hour.

The tea beside the keyboard had gone cold.

“Right,” he said quietly.

But instead of closing the browser, he scrolled further down the channel.

The videos stretched back years.

Winter walks.

Summer swims.

Windy afternoons at the range.

A small, quiet life recorded in hundreds of fragments.

Gary clicked another video almost at random.

The scene opened again at the swimming pool. Frank was setting the camera down on the same bench Gary had now seen several times.

As he adjusted the angle, someone passed briefly through the background.

A woman.

She moved quickly across the tiles and out of frame before Gary had properly registered her.

“Hold on,” Gary murmured.

He dragged the playback bar backwards a few seconds.

The woman crossed the screen again.

Dark hair tied loosely behind her head. A towel slung over one shoulder.

She didn’t look toward the camera.

The video continued.

Frank slipped into the pool and began swimming.

Gary sat there for a moment.

“Alright,” he said softly.

He clicked another video.

This one appeared to have been recorded outdoors. Frank stood beside a trailhead somewhere above the town, the hills rising behind him.

“Going to take a short walk this afternoon,” he said to the camera. “Nothing too ambitious.”

Someone spoke just off to the side.

“You brought the camera again?”

Gary froze.

The voice was…familiar.

He leaned forward slowly.

Frank turned slightly toward the speaker and the woman stepped partly into frame.

It was the same woman from the pool.

“You know I like documenting things,” Frank said.

She rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, well, Nadine likes hiking without being filmed.”

Gary felt a sudden prickle run down the back of his neck.

He rewound the video.

The woman spoke again.

“You brought the camera again?”

The same easy American voice.

The same voice that had said Hi, Frank on the phone.

Gary stared at the screen.

“That’s her,” he said quietly.

On the video Frank laughed and started walking up the trail while Nadine followed a few steps behind him.

Gary glanced down beneath the video window.

Two small icons sat there, exactly as they had on the others.

The thumbs-up symbol was highlighted.

Liked.

Gary looked back at the screen again, where Nadine was now disappearing further up the path beside Frank.

The video played on for a few moments longer, the two of them climbing slowly into the hills until the frame emptied and the screen faded to black. Then another video began automatically, and then another after that—Frank swimming again, Frank adjusting arrows at the range, Frank walking through the hills while Nadine’s voice drifted in and out of the frame.

At some point Gary became aware that the room had grown darker around him. The rain had stopped. The small digital clock beside the monitor read well past midnight.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured.

He closed the browser at last and leaned back in the chair, rubbing his eyes. His head felt thick now, the sort of dull exhaustion that arrived after staring at a screen too long.

For a moment he simply sat there in the quiet house.

Then something occurred to him.

The tablets.

He glanced toward the kitchen, where the small plastic pill organiser sat beside the kettle.

“Right,” he said softly.

He had meant to take them earlier that evening, at the usual time, but the hours had slipped past while he watched the videos.

Gary went through to the kitchen, swallowed the tablets with a mouthful of tap water, and stood there for a moment staring absently at the dark window.

Then he switched off the light and went upstairs to bed.

And as he lay there in the dark, waiting for sleep to come, the images returned again—blue water under bright lights, a row of targets beneath open sky, a narrow trail winding up into the hills above a town called Missoula.

2c:T12e0,

Frank woke at 7:30.

For a moment he lay still beneath the thin morning light, listening to the quiet sounds of the town beyond the open window. A car passed somewhere along the street. A distant dog barked once and then lost interest.

The air smelled faintly of pine and cool morning stone.

Frank stretched, swung his legs out of bed, and sat there a moment with his hands resting loosely on his knees.

It was shaping up to be a decent day.

He dressed, stepped outside, and walked down the street toward the small coffee shop on the corner where he usually stopped in the mornings. Missoula was only just beginning to stir. A few people moved along the pavements with that unhurried rhythm of towns that woke gently.

The bell above the café door gave a soft metallic note as he stepped inside.

Frank ordered coffee and stood waiting near the window.

Someone came up beside him a moment later.

“You’re early today,” the woman said.

Frank turned.

Nadine stood there with her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, looking faintly amused.

For a second he simply looked at her.

Then he smiled.

“That’s funny,” he said slowly.

“What is?”

“I don’t know,” Frank replied. “Just—seeing you like this.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Like what?”

He hesitated, searching for the right phrasing.

“Like seeing you for the first time.”

Nadine laughed softly.

“You’ve seen me plenty of times, Frank.”

“Yeah,” he said, still smiling slightly. “I suppose I have.”

They carried their coffees outside and stood for a while beneath the pale morning sky.

“What’s the plan today?” she asked.

Frank considered this.

“Well,” he said, counting it off almost thoughtfully, “I’ve got archery this morning.”

“Busy man.”

“Swimming later.”

“That tracks.”

“And then I might head up into the hills for a walk this afternoon.”

Nadine shook her head with mild disbelief.

“Archery, swimming, hiiking. The Calder Triathlon. You’re trying to do the whole day at once.”

Frank laughed. "That's actually funny. But...why not?"

She laughed back.

“Alright, Frank. You do that.”

They finished their coffee together, and then Nadine headed off toward the street that led down through the centre of town while Frank continued the other way.

The archery range sat just outside town, a wide stretch of open ground bordered by trees. When Frank arrived, the targets were already standing in their usual neat row beneath the pale sky.

A few others had gathered near the equipment benches.

One of them lifted a hand in greeting.

“Morning, Frank.”

Frank waved back.

Steve Molyneux was adjusting the sight on his bow, squinting slightly as he worked.

“Wind’s not too bad today,” Steve said without looking up.

“Looks alright,” Frank agreed.

He set his camera down on the bench nearby and angled it carefully toward the range.

“Filming again?” Steve asked.

“Just a little.”

Steve shook his head with mild amusement.

“Your archive of Missoula life grows ever larger.”

Frank laughed.

“That’s the plan.”

He stepped back onto the line, lifted the bow, and drew the string slowly until it settled against his cheek.

The arrow flew cleanly.

Not perfect.

But close enough.

By midday the sun had climbed higher and the air carried the faint warmth of early afternoon.

Frank drove back into town and stopped by the pool.

Inside, the familiar echo of the building wrapped around him as he set the camera on the bench beside the lanes.

“Quiet today,” he said to the lens.

He slipped into the water.

The rhythm of swimming came easily—lap after lap beneath the bright lights, the soft churn of water breaking against the tiles.

When he climbed out again some time later, the afternoon had begun to soften toward evening.

Frank packed away the camera and stepped back onto the street.

The town had taken on that relaxed late-day atmosphere he liked best. People drifted along the pavements without much urgency. Cars moved slowly through the intersections.

Frank walked a short distance down the block before pausing outside a small bar.

The sign above the door read:

THE WANDERER

Frank stood there for a moment, considering it.

“That’s appropriate,” he murmured.

He smiled faintly to himself.

Because that was exactly what he was about to do.

Go for a wander.

Up into the hills above Missoula.

2d:T1aa8,

The path began just beyond the last houses at the edge of town, rising in a series of pale switchbacks through dry grass and low pines toward the open hills above Missoula.

Frank took it at an easy pace at first.

The light had that strange late-afternoon clarity particular to high places, everything seeming at once sharper and less substantial, as though the world had been lightly outlined rather than fully made. The town below lay in a quiet spread of streets and trees and parked cars, all of it receding with surprising speed as he climbed.

For the first ten minutes or so he thought of nothing in particular. He was simply aware of the steady incline, the faint warmth still held in the ground, the small shifting sounds of birds deeper in the brush.

Then, gradually, another awareness came over him.

He was tired.

Not absurdly so. Not yet. But more tired than he ought to have been.

He slowed a little and looked down at the path as if the ground itself might account for it.

“That’s odd,” he murmured.

He had slept well enough. The day had been a full one, certainly, but not the sort of day that ought to leave a man feeling hollowed out by late afternoon. And yet there it was: a slight weakness in the limbs, a peculiar looseness in the head, as though some vital part of his concentration were beginning, very gently, to thin out.

Frank kept walking.

A few minutes later he became aware of another sound behind him.

Not close. Not urgent.

Just the light, regular suggestion of movement somewhere further down the trail.

He turned.

A wolf stood on the path below him.

It was grey, lean, perfectly still.

Frank looked at it for a moment.

Then he frowned.

The odd thing was not that it was there.

The odd thing was that he did not feel frightened.

He ought, presumably, to have felt frightened. That much he understood in theory. A man alone on a hillside, late in the day, being followed by a wolf, ought to feel something sharper than mild curiosity.

But the feeling refused to arrive.

The animal merely stood there, looking up at him with a calm, unreadable attention.

Frank gave it one last look, then turned and carried on.

The trail lifted and curved. The town below grew smaller. The air seemed brighter now, too bright almost, washed in a pale gold that flattened distance and made the far slopes look strangely theatrical, like painted scenery.

After another bend in the path, he glanced back again.

The wolf was still there.

Not hurrying. Not gaining on him.

Simply following.

“Right,” Frank said softly.

He walked on.

A little while later he looked back once more and saw that there were now four of them.

He stopped.

The wolves stood in a loose line on the path below, all quiet, all watching him.

Again the expected fear failed to come.

Instead there was only the same bewildering lack of urgency, as though some part of him had already accepted their presence and folded it into the day without protest.

He stared at them.

“Shouldn’t I be bothered by this?”

The question went nowhere.

He resumed climbing.

By now the tiredness had deepened into something harder to ignore. His legs felt heavier. His breathing came a touch shorter than it should have done. And beneath that physical effort there was something stranger still: a sense that the day had begun to drift away from him, becoming at once more vivid and less believable.

The path swung upward again in another long switchback.

As Frank rounded it, he had, for no reason he could have named, a sudden image of rain falling on a narrow street of brick terraces. Wet pavements. Low front doors. A small upstairs window lit against the evening.

The image vanished at once.

Frank stopped and pressed a hand lightly to his forehead.

“What was that?”

There was no answer.

Only the brightness. The path. The dry grass moving faintly in the breeze.

He climbed higher.

At the next turn he became aware of the wolves no longer following directly behind. The silence around him had altered somehow. It had widened.

Frank moved to the outer edge of the path and looked down.

Several switchbacks below, gathered across the trail and the slope beside it, stood a whole pack of wolves.

Not four now.

A dozen at least. Perhaps more.

Fifteen. Twenty.

It was difficult to say.

They stood in complete silence, all of them looking up toward him.

For a moment the sight was so strange, so perfectly composed, that it seemed less like something happening than something being remembered.

Then, from somewhere to his left, a man’s voice said warmly:

“That’s our lot, son.”

Frank smiled before he even understood why.

The hillside vanished for half a second.

He was elsewhere—or had been elsewhere once—small enough that the world rose around him in tiers of noise and colour, his hand swallowed in a larger hand, his father’s coat rough against his shoulder, voices rolling up from the crowd in one great living sound.

He could feel the happiness of it before he could think it.

A child’s happiness. Sudden, complete, unquestioning.

The smile stayed on his face for a moment.

Then it faltered.

“Dad?”

His voice sounded smaller now.

He turned to his left.

There was no one there.

Frank looked back down the hill.

The wolves had gone.

The path below lay empty in the late light, bending away through dry grass and rock as though nothing had ever stood upon it at all.

He stared for a few seconds longer, then lowered himself slowly onto the side of the trail.

The effort of sitting down felt unexpectedly immense.

“I’m absolutely spent,” he said, though even to himself the words seemed to come from a great distance.

He rested his forearms on his knees and let his head hang for a moment.

Then, very quietly:

“I hardly knew you.”

The sentence surprised him by how true it felt.

He closed his eyes.

Behind them the brightness did not diminish. It grew.

Brighter and brighter, until the light seemed no longer to belong to the hills at all but to some other place entirely, some interior place where memory and longing had become indistinguishable.

For a final moment he saw things he could not possibly have seen together: blue water under indoor lights, a row of archery targets beneath open sky, rain on red brick, a glowing computer screen in a darkened room.

Then even those began to fade.

2e:Te77,

The landlord had tried calling twice that morning.

No answer.

By the afternoon he had sent two messages and an email about the rent, which was now a week overdue. Gary Hargreaves had never been late before. Not once in the three years he had lived in the house.

That, more than anything, was what made the silence feel wrong.

At half past three the landlord let himself in with his spare key.

“Mr Hargreaves?” he called from the doorway.

The house smelled stale, as though the windows had been closed for days.

He stepped into the small front room.

The computer screen was still glowing faintly in the dim light.

Gary Hargreaves sat in the chair beside the desk, leaning slightly to one side, his head tilted as if he had simply fallen asleep there.

The landlord stood very still for a moment.

Then he quietly backed out of the room and reached for his phone.

By the time the police arrived the street had returned to its ordinary late-afternoon quiet.

Sergeant Patel stood in the narrow bedroom while Constable Rees made notes near the doorway.

“Body was discovered by the landlord,” Rees said. “Came looking for overdue rent.”

Patel nodded.

Gary Hargreaves remained seated in the chair by the desk.

The position alone told most of the story.

Patel glanced briefly at the small cluster of empty blister packs lying beside the keyboard.

Risperidone.

“Looks like an overdose,” he said.

Rees wrote it down.

“Nothing suspicious?”

Patel shook his head.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

They continued the slow, methodical process that followed: photographs, notes, small observations about the room and the objects within it.

Eventually Rees turned his attention to the computer.

“What was he doing?” he said.

The browser window was still open.

A YouTube channel filled the screen.

A man in his forties stood beside a river in the banner image.

“Frank Calder,” Rees read.

He scrolled through the page.

Hundreds of short videos appeared below.

“Swimming… archery… walking about in the hills,” he said. “Looks like that’s all this bloke does.”

Patel gave a mild shrug.

“Some people film everything.”

“Not many watching.”

“Apparently not.”

Rees clicked on one of the videos.

A man—presumably Frank—set a camera down beside a swimming pool and slipped into the water.

Rees watched for a few seconds.

“Bit dull,” he said.

Patel had picked up a bank statement from the desk.

He glanced down the list of transactions.

“Looks like he had some sort of voice service subscription,” he said.

Rees looked over.

“What kind?”

“AI companion calls,” Patel said. “Monthly charge.”

Rees nodded slowly.

“That explain the phone activity?”

“Probably.”

Patel set the statement back beside the keyboard.

Rees returned his attention to the computer screen and scrolled down through the channel again.

Then, almost absent-mindedly, he refreshed the page.

A new video appeared at the top of the list.

Uploaded that morning.

The thumbnail showed the same man standing on a narrow trail somewhere high above a town.

The title read:

Walk in the Hills

Rees glanced at it briefly.

Then he pushed the chair back and stood.

“I think we’re done here,” he said.

Patel gave the room one last look.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Pretty much.”

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To Be Frank

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