He woke each day to the hum of routine, the world gently echoing familiar rhythms: coffee at dawn, the pulse of gym machines, streets filled with faces that blurred into quiet anonymity. Comfort lingered in these repetitions, yet beneath it stirred a quiet uncertainty, like tracing faint lines left behind by someone unseen. Paths vaguely remembered but never clearly defined.

He often paused, gazing at reflections in windows or puddles, searching for something unnamed. Perhaps a sign, a whisper, or a silent assurance. Yet the reflections always stared back impassively, withholding whatever secret he hoped to glimpse.

One stormy afternoon, caught unexpectedly in the rain, he ducked into a small bookstore he'd never noticed before. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust, the kind of place that seemed to exist outside of time. Rows of forgotten books lined the walls, their spines cracked and faded, titles barely legible.

Near the back, half-hidden beneath a pile of neglected volumes, he found a diary. Its leather cover was worn smooth, the pages yellowed with age. He opened it, drawn by an impulse he couldn't name.

Inside, on the first page, a single word was written in confident, flowing script:

Ashen.

He turned to the last page. There, in different ink, shakier but no less deliberate, was written again:

Ashen?

Between the two names lay decades of blank pages. No entries. No stories. Just the weight of time passing, unrecorded.

He stared at the two inscriptions. One certain. One questioning. Both the same name, yet separated by years and doubt.

The shopkeeper, an old man who had been watching from the corner, spoke quietly.

"Found something interesting?"

"Two names," he said, still staring at the pages. "The same name. But one knows. The other wonders."

The old man nodded slowly. "Perhaps it's not two people. Perhaps it's one person at the beginning, and at the end. The question is: did they remember who they were, or did they forget along the way?"

He closed the diary carefully, feeling its weight in his hands. Outside, the rain had stopped, but the streets still glistened with reflections. Clearer now, as if something had shifted.

He didn't buy the diary. He didn't need to. The question it posed was already his.

As he walked home, he thought about the routines, the reflections, the quiet uncertainty. And for the first time, he asked himself aloud:

"Is this who I intend to become?"

The reflection in a shop window didn't answer. But this time, he didn't need it to.