Kyle was thirty years old. He lived alone in the house his parents left him and shared it with a twelve-year-old cat named Milo—an elderly tabby who slept on his keyboard during meetings, ignored him for most of the day, and only showed affection when demanding food.

  His job was in IT—tech support for a mid-sized company where printer jams were treated like DEFCON alerts and password resets were worthy of five-paragraph email chains. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t exciting. But it was stable. Kyle had fallen into the role straight out of college and never left. Not because it thrilled him—but because staying was easier than starting over.

  His life was a routine, locked in a loop like an old screensaver. Wake up. Feed Milo. Drink coffee that always tasted a little burnt. Drive to work. Solve problems. Drive home. Microwave dinner. Browse forums. Sleep.

  It wasn’t a bad life.

  It just wasn’t… loud.

  He had no enemies. No great ambitions. No partner. His coworkers were nice in the way distant coworkers often are—cordial, professional, the kind who might nod politely in the break room but didn’t invite you out for drinks. Most had families, or weekend rituals like fantasy football leagues and brewery meetups. Kyle didn’t resent them. He simply didn’t belong in those conversations.

  He wasn’t lonely exactly. Just separate. Watching a movie without sound. Reading the subtitles to other people’s lives.

  There were times—quiet ones, usually—when he wondered if that would ever change. If he’d wake up one day with a need for something different. Bigger.

  But most days began like this one.

  The alarm buzzed at 7:15 AM.

  Kyle slapped it into silence without opening his eyes. A beat later, he heard the soft thwap-thwap of a tail against the foot of the bed. A moment later, Milo leapt up, all bones and fur and unimpressed feline judgment, landing squarely on Kyle’s ribs.

  “Milo,” he mumbled. “It’s Sunday.”

  The cat blinked.

  Kyle squinted at the clock.

  “Right. Thursday.”

  By 7:40, he was showered, dressed in one of his four identical gray hoodies, and halfway through a slightly-burnt cup of coffee. Milo had been fed. The judgment in his stare suggested Kyle’s can-opening speed remained insufficient.

  The house was still. Not quiet like an empty room—quiet like a museum. The kind of silence that settled when no new voices had entered in years. Kyle had lived there since he was born. After his parents died—plane crash, anniversary trip, five years ago—he never left. He couldn't. Not really.

  The house carried their fingerprints. The faint smell of his mother’s tea blends still clung to the kitchen walls. His father’s tools remained exactly where he left them in the garage—arranged with the kind of neatness Kyle never managed to replicate. His bedroom was the only space that felt like it belonged to him.

  He didn’t dwell on their absence anymore. The grief was part of the wallpaper now. Familiar. Present, but not sharp.

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  He finished his coffee by the back window, watching wind stir the tree branches. The yard needed raking. The porch had peeled paint. The bird feeder hung empty and slightly tilted.

  Then something hit the fence.

  It wasn’t loud—just a sharp crack of impact against wood. Kyle narrowed his eyes toward the side gate, setting his mug down.

  In the grass near the base of the fence, something small twitched.

  He walked outside, grabbing a clean sock from the kitchen drawer. It was a habit—one he'd picked up years ago, kept for emergencies like this. The “animal sock,” he called it. Always clean, always soft.

  A bird. Small. Feathers streaked with brown and cream, wing crooked at an awkward angle. It didn’t move when Kyle knelt, but its eye blinked once.

  “Still breathing. That’s a good start.”

  He didn’t reach out. Not right away.

  “You don’t grab a scared animal, son. You offer safety. Let them choose.”

  His father’s voice echoed in memory—steady, patient. Kyle could still see him crouched in the backyard, showing ten-year-old Kyle how to wrap a rabbit’s injured paw in strips of towel. “Let it come to you,” he’d said. “Fixing it comes later. First, let it know you aren’t something it needs to survive.”

  Kyle laid the sock beside the bird and waited.

  One hop.

  Then another.

  The bird tucked itself into the fabric, chest rising and falling like a fragile drumbeat.

  He exhaled.

  Back inside, Kyle placed the bird in a shoebox lined with a dish towel. He scribbled a note in all-caps on a yellow sticky and placed it on the counter:

  FOUND INJURED – CALM – LEFT WING —K

  Milo watched from the windowsill, tail flicking. Kyle stared back.

  “Don’t eat it.”

  He rinsed his mug, checked the clock—8:32—and shouldered his bag. As he passed the hallway photo of his parents, the sunlight hit the frame just right. He didn’t look directly at it, but his fingers brushed the base.

  “Still taking care of things,” he murmured.

  Milo meowed softly behind him.

  The drive to work was short—six minutes, seven if the Elm Street light turned red.

  Same route. Same peeling bakery sign on the corner. Same black-and-white shepherd mix tied outside the café, guarding the sidewalk like a knight.

  Kyle parked, grabbed his messenger bag, and stepped into the crisp spring air. The season was finally winning its tug-of-war with winter. The breeze carried a hint of warmth beneath its chill.

  He looked both ways, then stepped into the crosswalk.

  And that’s when he saw her.

  A girl. Nine or ten. Pink jacket, bright sneakers, earbuds in. Walking across from the opposite side, humming to herself, eyes locked on her tablet.

  She didn’t see the truck.

  But Kyle did.

  He didn’t think. There wasn’t time to think.

  His body surged forward—bag flung aside, heart thundering, lungs forgotten.

  He didn’t register the horn or the screech of brakes.

  Only the girl. And the gap between them.

  He reached her just in time, crashing into her side and pushing—hard.

  She screamed as she tumbled across the sidewalk. She hit the concrete, scraped her palms, rolled.

  Safe.

  Kyle looked up.

  The truck filled the world.

  No pain.

  Just light.

  Not headlights. Not streetlamps.

  Something else.

  A brightness that came from within, folding around him, wrapping the world in stillness.

  Kyle’s thoughts didn’t race. They slowed.

  He saw his cat in the window.

  He saw the bird in the sock.

  He saw his mother’s smile. His father’s steady hands.

  And he thought: Was that enough?

  There was no voice to answer.

  Just a sense of quiet.

  And then—

  Something new.

  Not breath. Not motion.

  But warmth.

  As if the light carried memory. Or promise. Or… potential.

  And then—

  He fell.