An original dispatch from Andrei’s world.

I had one rule for my apartment: no woman entered it. The rule sounded like a preference when I said it aloud. In private, it behaved more like a lock.

Then Dia was there.

Twenty years had passed since she vanished. I could have asked how she got in. That question belongs to doors, keys and neighbours who keep spares.

Why now? That question belongs to everything a lock cannot keep out.

Within the hour, I learned my parents had died on a mountain road. I could have called it coincidence. A journalist learns to distrust coincidence only after it has ruined his day.

We tend to think a mystery begins when someone disappears. Sometimes it begins when someone returns. The room is the same. The person who owns it isn’t.

So let me ask you. If someone who vanished from your life walked into your room tonight, which question would come first?

A. How did you get in?
B. Why now?

Leave A or B below. No explanation required. Explanations tend to arrive later.

Andrei Jebeleanu is a fictional journalist in Marius Tianu’s novel The Apophatic Man. This is an original dispatch from his world, not an excerpt from the book.

Volume I arrives 10 November 2026. Pre-order on Kindle. Follow Andrei on TikTok and Instagram.