The feeling does not leave, and it does not flare into something sharp enough to justify reaction, because instead it settles into the edges of my awareness like breath against the back of my neck that never quite stops. The night watches back, not in the obvious way of patrol routes and lantern-lit corridors, but in the quieter ways that only register if you are looking for them, in the way conversations lower when I pass, in the way footsteps pause just beyond doorframes, and in the way scent shifts a fraction of a second before someone rounds a corner as if adjusting their posture before I see them.
I keep routine as camouflage, because routine is the one thing no one questions until it changes. I shower first, hot water running steady over my shoulders while steam fogs the mirror unti
