I was born in a dimly lit hospital room, my first cries swallowed by the howling wind outside. There were others with me—tiny, wrinkled beings, struggling to take in the weight of existence. We were nameless then, indistinguishable, each of us swaddled in the same rough white cloth, our destinies not yet inked onto the pages of life. 

And then, we were torn apart. 

Years passed. I became a man of moderate consequence, neither remarkable nor utterly lost. But sometimes, in the late hours of the night, a thought visits me like an old friend: *Where are they?* The ones who took their first breath beside me? What did life do to them? What did they do to life? 

Perhaps one of them walks the same streets as I do, brushing past me, unaware. We might have sat across from each other in a café, exchanged nods in an elevator, or stood in silent frustration at a traffic light. Or worse—what if I have already looked into their eyes and seen nothing? What if time has rendered us strangers, unrecognizable to one another? 

And yet, another thought haunts me. What if one of them is suffering? What if, in this vast and indifferent world, I was meant to be their salvation? A man of fortune, I could extend a hand, pull them from the abyss. But do I truly wish to know? Would I bear the burden of their despair, or would I recoil from it? 

Or—God forbid—what if they are the ones above me, their names shining in golden letters while I remain here, in the shadows? Would they look upon me with kindness, or with the cold indifference that the successful often have for those who remind them of what they could have been? 

Fate is cruel. It binds and unbinds without reason. But sometimes, I wonder: if I call out into the void, if I whisper, *where are you?*, will one of them answer? Or has life already written its verdict, and we are meant to remain ghosts in each other’s stories—felt but never seen?

Inspired by Jam&Chanty