The Man Who Wasn’t Full Album (34:53)

Fading Into Oblivion: The Google Deep Dive Podcast on Identity, Memory, and the Forgotten Self

What Remains of a Man Who Was Never There?

“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.”
—Erik Erikson

Some names fade with time, others disappear as if they were never spoken at all. The Man Who Wasn’t is not just an album—it’s an unraveling. A haunting journey through identity, memory, and the slow erosion of self, this collection of songs and stories is both a whisper and a scream, a presence that lingers even as it vanishes.

Through melancholic melodies and stark, poetic narratives, we follow Alaric Nix, a man slipping between the cracks of existence. His name falters, his reflection dims, his voice is swallowed by the void, until even the world itself forgets he was ever there. What happens when your presence becomes as insubstantial as breath on glass?

Each track deepens the descent, each lyric dissolves another fragment of identity. The Man Who Wasn’t is an exploration of impermanence—achingly beautiful, eerily unsettling, and utterly unforgettable.

Listen. Remember. Before it fades away.

The Man Who Wasn’t

1. Fading Ink

Alaric Nix first noticed it at the coffee shop. He had been coming to the same place for years, ordering the same black coffee, always greeted by the same barista. But this morning, she hesitated as she reached for a cup, her marker hovering above the lid. “What was your name again?” she asked, her brow furrowed. He chuckled, thinking she was joking, but her eyes held only confusion. “Alaric,” he repeated, slower this time, but as soon as the word left his lips, it felt thin, insubstantial, like ink fading from paper. She scrawled something illegible, and when he picked up his drink, it read Alec instead.

At work, the feeling deepened. Colleagues who once greeted him in passing now overlooked him entirely, their gazes sliding past him like he was a shadow in the periphery. A department meeting left him stranded in silence—every time he tried to speak, someone else would cut in as if he hadn’t made a sound at all. When his manager called roll, there was a moment’s pause before she squinted at the list, shook her head, and moved on without acknowledging his name. A small unease curled in his stomach. He wasn’t imagining this. Something was wrong.

That night, standing in front of his bathroom mirror, he examined himself as if searching for answers in his own reflection. His features were unchanged—same sharp cheekbones, same dark eyes—but there was something else, something off. A dullness, maybe. A lack of presence. He ran his fingers over his face, feeling the solid contours of his skin, yet the moment he looked away, a whisper of doubt crept in. Was it possible for a person to simply… fade? He shook the thought from his mind. He was tired, that was all. Stress, exhaustion. Nothing more.

But the next day, the same thing happened. And the day after that. Friends paused mid-sentence as if they had forgotten he was there. His name left their mouths incomplete, a half-formed thought that never reached its conclusion. At a family gathering, his own sister frowned at him across the dinner table, blinking like she was seeing a stranger in his place. “You look… different,” she murmured, but when he pressed her, she only shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Alaric wanted to dismiss it, to write it off as paranoia, but deep inside, something primal stirred. A growing hollowness. It wasn’t just forgetfulness, not just carelessness. It was as if the world was losing its grip on him, as if he were slipping between its fingers, like a name spoken into the wind—heard for a moment, and then gone.

[Verse 1]
I walked in the door, they knew my name,
But their eyes slid past, like I was just the same.
A moment of doubt, a question in the air,
My name on their lips, but no one seemed to care.

[Verse 2]
Alec or Alaric, does it even matter?
A shadow in the corner, like a fleeting chatter.
I speak, but they don’t hear, not a sound or a sigh,
I reach for their gaze, but they look right by.

[Chorus]
Fading ink, fading light,
A name that disappears in the night.
I’m here, but I’m not, can’t you see?
The hollowness growing inside of me.

[Verse 3]
I see myself in the mirror, but it’s not quite right,
The face is there, but it feels like a fight.
Touching my skin, it’s solid, but weak,
Yet when I look away, it’s nothing I can keep.

[Verse 4]
I search for a trace, a memory to hold,
But it slips through my fingers, the story untold.
Like a dream that dissolves when you wake up too soon,
I’m fading away, like the light of the moon.

[Bridge]
What’s left when the world forgets your name?
A whisper in the silence, a flicker of flame.

[Chorus]
Fading ink, fading light,
A name that disappears in the night.
I’m here, but I’m not, can’t you see?
The hollowness growing inside of me.

2. The Dimming Light

Alaric Nix sat in a café, a book open in his hands, though he hadn’t turned a page in minutes. Around him, conversations buzzed—laughter, the clinking of cups, the gentle hum of life moving forward. But none of it included him. At the next table, two old friends of his chatted animatedly, recounting memories in which he should have been a central figure. “Remember that road trip?” one of them said, eyes bright with nostalgia. Alaric leaned in, expecting his name, waiting for his part in the story. But it never came. They laughed about things he remembered vividly, moments he had shaped, yet he was absent from their words. It was as if he had never been there at all.

At work, it was worse. He stood by the breakroom, coffee in hand, as a group of colleagues huddled in discussion about a project he had spent weeks working on. Every contribution he had made was credited to someone else. “It was Peter’s idea,” one of them said, nodding. “Really smart thinking.” Alaric opened his mouth to correct them, but the words died on his tongue. What was the point? He had the creeping suspicion that even if he spoke, they wouldn’t hear him. Even if he yelled, his voice would be nothing but a ripple in the air, already fading before it reached their ears.

It was subtle at first, the way light touched him differently. He caught it in reflections, in the way shadows fell. One evening, he stood beneath the amber glow of a streetlamp and noticed that his shadow was… wrong. Not just faint, but somehow incomplete, thinning at the edges as though it no longer had the strength to cling to the pavement. At home, he stood before his mirror and lifted his hand. The reflection followed, but just a fraction too late, a delay that sent an icy pulse through his spine. Light no longer settled on his skin the way it should. It bent around him, passed through him, treating him like something temporary.

Panic bloomed in his chest, but it had nowhere to go. How do you fight something you can’t hold onto? He tested it, stepping in and out of the light, watching as his own body seemed to waver, as if the world couldn’t quite decide whether he should still be there. He placed a hand against the desk, pressing hard, feeling the solid wood beneath his palm. I’m still here, he told himself. But even as he did, he glanced at his wrist, at the space just beyond it, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he could see the grain of the wood through his own skin.

A cold realization settled over him: he was not merely being forgotten. He was unraveling. His presence in the world was weakening, piece by piece, moment by moment. It wasn’t just that people failed to acknowledge him—he was ceasing to belong to the physical world itself. Light, sound, gravity—all of it was beginning to loosen its hold on him. And as he stared into his own fading reflection, for the first time, he wondered: What happens when I reach the end of this?

[Verse 1]
They speak, but my name is left behind,
A shadow drifts through their minds,
I reach for them, but they pass me by,
A silent plea, a fading sigh.

[Verse 2]
At work, they forget I’m in the room,
My words are lost in the silence of doom,
A ripple in the air, no voice to hold,
My presence weakens, the story grows cold.

[Verse 3]
I stand beneath a streetlamp’s glow,
But my shadow won’t follow where I go,
Fading at the edges, thinner each day,
I wonder how much longer I’ll stay.

[Verse 4]
I touch the world, but it slips away,
The light bends through me, as if I decay,
I’m here, but I’m not, I’m something between,
A fading echo, barely seen.

[Chorus]
I’m slipping through, a light growing thin,
A whisper caught in the wind.
I fade like the dusk, no trace to find,
A memory lost in the back of the mind.

[Bridge]
I’m not here, but still, I exist,
A flicker in light, a vanishing twist.

[Chorus]
I’m slipping through, a light growing thin,
A whisper caught in the wind.
I fade like the dusk, no trace to find,
A memory lost in the back of the mind.

3. Glass Skin

Alaric Nix stood before the mirror, gripping the edges of the sink as if anchoring himself to the world. He had avoided this moment for as long as he could, chalking up the unease to exhaustion, to stress, to anything that could be explained away. But there was no denying it now. His reflection was wrong—not distorted, not absent, but translucent. The edges of his face blurred, his skin no longer a solid barrier between himself and the world behind him. He leaned closer, his breath fogging the glass, but even that mist seemed uncertain whether to cling to him or let him go.

He lifted a trembling hand and waved it in front of his face. The motion was sluggish, surreal—his fingers, once so familiar, now seemed like delicate panes of colored glass, faintly visible but not entirely there. Behind them, he could make out the faint outline of the bathroom tiles, distorted as though seen through a warped window. He clenched his fist, watching as the veins and bones beneath the skin became shadowy suggestions rather than concrete forms. His body was betraying him, dissolving before his own eyes.

Panic surged, but it was distant, detached, like a reflex from a body he no longer fully belonged to. He pressed his palms against the mirror, desperate to feel something real, but the glass beneath his touch felt colder than it should—too solid in contrast to the thinning substance of his own flesh. He turned away, half-expecting his reflection to remain staring after him, but it obeyed, albeit with a strange hesitation, as if it too struggled to hold onto him. For a brief, terrible moment, he wondered: If I shatter the mirror, will I shatter too?

Stepping back, he raised his arm into the bathroom’s dim light, rotating it slowly. The translucency wasn’t uniform—his forearm remained mostly intact, while his fingertips wavered like mist, dissolving slightly at the edges before reforming. It was a process, not an instant vanishing. He was breaking apart gradually, fragment by fragment, like an old photograph fading under the weight of time. And yet, even as the horror of it settled into his bones, a part of him marveled at the strangeness of it all. What would it feel like, he wondered, to reach the point where nothing of him remained at all?

But no answer came. Only silence. Only the unnerving sensation that he was watching his own existence slip through the cracks like sand in an hourglass, and no one—not his friends, not his family, not even his own reflection—seemed to notice. The world carried on as if he had never mattered, as if he were nothing more than an image made of glass, waiting to fracture, waiting to disappear.

[Verse 1]
I stand before the glass, no longer whole,
The face I know slips through my soul.
Fingers like glass, they tremble and fade,
A mirror that shows what can’t be saved.

[Verse 2]
I raise my hand, the edges blur,
Like mist that won’t linger, unsure.
The world behind me bends and fades,
My skin, a window—my form, a shade.

[Verse 3]
I press my palms, but the glass is cold,
A solid world, but I’m growing old.
My veins are whispers, my bones are mist,
Dissolving slowly, too strange to resist.

[Verse 4]
I watch myself in the dim-lit glow,
A fading image, too weak to show.
Fragment by fragment, piece by piece,
I dissolve into silence, piece by piece.

[Chorus]
Glass skin, fading slow,
A fracture in the world I know.
I’m slipping through the cracks of time,
A whisper caught in the dirt and grime.

[Bridge]
If I shatter, will I cease to be?
A thousand pieces, a memory.

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[Chorus]
Glass skin, fading slow,
A fracture in the world I know.
I’m slipping through the cracks of time,
A whisper caught in the dirt and grime.

4. The Unheld Hand

Alaric Nix sat at his desk, turning a pen over in his fingers, testing his grip. It felt slick, like something wrapped in oil, resisting the simple act of being held. He squeezed tighter, willing himself to anchor it, but the pen slipped from his grasp, bouncing once before rolling off the edge of the desk. He reached down to retrieve it, but when his fingers made contact, they simply passed through. He pulled back in shock, shaking his hand as though to wake it up, but the sensation was undeniable—he had touched nothing. Or rather, nothing had touched him.

Out in the city, the effect worsened. He walked through a crowded street, his mind racing, his pulse hammering against the inside of his ribs. He needed proof that he was still here, that he was still real. The crowd swarmed around him, a river of moving bodies, and he braced himself for the inevitable jostle of passing strangers. But they never came. A man in a dark coat walked straight through Alaric’s shoulder without hesitation, without resistance. There was no impact, no stumble—just the eerie feeling of cold air rushing over his skin where their bodies should have collided.

He turned, reaching out on instinct, grasping at the sleeve of a woman passing by. His fingers brushed against her coat, but there was no friction, no fabric against his skin. His hand phased through as if she were made of mist—or worse, as if he was. The woman didn’t react. She didn’t feel his presence at all. Alaric staggered backward, his breath coming in quick, uneven bursts. He reached for a nearby streetlamp, gripping its metal post for support, but his fingers found nothing but air. He fell to his knees, the hard pavement below offering no reassurance. If the world no longer held him, then what was keeping him here at all?

At the subway station, desperation gripped him. He ran his fingers along the tiled walls, pressed his palms against the turnstile, but there was nothing. The sensation of touch—the small, reassuring friction between skin and object—was slipping from him like water draining through open fingers. He clenched his fists and slammed them against a metal railing, but they slid straight through. The world no longer recognized him as solid. He was a breath of air, a suggestion of movement, a shadow without weight.

The worst part was how quickly his mind adjusted. Within minutes, he stopped trying to hold things, stopped expecting doors to push back when he pressed against them. The reality of his condition settled into his bones like a slow-moving poison. He had become untethered, unanchored. He no longer belonged to the physical world. And if that was true, then how much longer would the world allow him to be at all?

[Verse 1]
The pen slips from my grasp, too slick to hold,
A touch so empty, a feeling cold.
I reach, but there’s nothing, no substance to find,
I’m losing my grip, I’m losing my mind.

[Verse 2]
The crowd moves around me, but I don’t exist,
No bump, no jolt, just a ghost in the mist.
I reach for a stranger, my hand fades away,
She doesn’t see me, she doesn’t stay.

[Verse 3]
I try to hold onto the world I know,
Fingers through walls, where does it go?
I slam my fists, but they don’t collide,
I’m slipping through cracks where nothing can hide.

[Verse 4]
I’m untethered now, a shadow without weight,
Touch is a memory, a fading state.
What holds me here, what keeps me in place?
If I’m not real, then I’m lost in space.

[Chorus]
The unheld hand, slipping through the seams,
A life without touch, lost in the dreams.
I reach for the world, but I’m fading fast,
A phantom in time, a memory cast.

[Bridge]
How long can I hold on, when nothing holds me?
A breath in the wind, a truth I can’t see.

[Chorus]
The unheld hand, slipping through the seams,
A life without touch, lost in the dreams.
I reach for the world, but I’m fading fast,
A phantom in time, a memory cast.

5. The Unheard Scream

Alaric Nix stood in the middle of the street and shouted. A raw, desperate cry that should have startled birds from the wires, should have turned heads, should have echoed against the buildings and sent his voice ricocheting back to him. But the sound never came. His mouth had opened, his throat had burned with the force of it, but the world remained undisturbed. The city hummed with its usual noise—the chatter of pedestrians, the distant wail of a siren, the low rumble of cars rolling through intersections—but his voice was absent, erased before it could reach the air.

Panic set in. He ran to a nearby café, shouldering through the door that did not resist him. People sat at tables, sipping coffee, scrolling through their phones, laughing at jokes he couldn’t hear. He slammed his hands onto the counter, leaning toward the barista. “Help me,” he pleaded. Nothing. The words had felt real as they left his lips, but the barista didn’t flinch, didn’t pause in pouring steamed milk into a paper cup. “I’M RIGHT HERE,” he tried again, his voice rising to what should have been a roar, but the words barely reached his own ears. They were less than whispers, as if being swallowed the moment they left his tongue.

Desperation turned to terror. He pulled out his phone and dialed an old friend—someone who would hear him, someone who would have to recognize his voice. The line rang. Once. Twice. A click. “Hello?” His friend’s voice, familiar and warm, flooded his ears. “Hello?” they repeated. Alaric exhaled in relief. “It’s me!” he said, gripping the phone tightly, his breath coming in frantic bursts. “Something’s wrong. I need—” But his words did not cross the distance. The silence on the other end stretched impossibly long, save for the soft sound of breathing. Then: “Must’ve been a wrong number,” his friend muttered before hanging up.

Alaric stared at the dead screen in his hand, his fingers shaking. He could still hear the world, still listen to conversations and music and laughter, but his own voice—his own—had been stripped from him. He tried singing, just to see if he could make any sound at all, but the melody died inside his chest. He screamed again, and this time, he heard only the shallow echo of his own heartbeat, growing fainter by the second. It was as though he existed in a different frequency, a space just out of reach, where no sound he made could ever touch another living soul.

He backed away from the café, stumbling onto the sidewalk, gasping as if he had been drowning and only now realized how deep under he was. A man brushed past him, whistling to himself, completely oblivious to the silent ghost in his path. Alaric wanted to reach out, to grab the man’s sleeve and shake him, but he already knew what would happen. He had lost his reflection, lost his touch, and now, he had lost his voice. How much more of him was left? How many more pieces could the world forget before he, too, forgot himself?

[Verse 1]
I scream into the wind, but the silence stays,
My words erased, lost in the haze.
I try to shout, to make them see,
But all I hear is the echo of me.

[Verse 2]
I ran to the café, hands on the counter,
I begged for help, but my voice was a whisper.
They didn’t hear, they didn’t flinch,
I’m fading away, just another inch.

[Verse 3]
The phone rings, and my heart skips a beat,
But my voice is gone, no one to greet.
I shout into the line, but there’s nothing back,
The world moves on, but I’m off track.

[Verse 4]
Singing to the air, but the melody dies,
No one can hear, no one replies.
I scream again, but it’s lost in my chest,
How much longer till I fade from the rest?

[Chorus]
The unheard scream, swallowed by the night,
My voice a ghost, fading out of sight.
The world keeps turning, but I’m left behind,
A silent whisper in a world so blind.

[Bridge]
How much more can I lose?
When the world forgets your voice,
Is there anything left to choose?

[Chorus]
The unheard scream, swallowed by the night,
My voice a ghost, fading out of sight.
The world keeps turning, but I’m left behind,
A silent whisper in a world so blind.

6. The Unwritten Name

Alaric Nix sat at his desk, staring at a contract in front of him, the crisp paper untouched by time. It was his signature, or at least, it had been. He reached for the pen, intending to sign his name as he had countless times before, but as the ink flowed across the page, something strange happened—the lines of his signature blurred and faded, as if the ink itself could not retain his identity. He tried again, pressing harder, pushing for his name to remain, but the result was the same. The black ink bled away, leaving only an empty space where his name should have been. No mark, no evidence of his existence. It was as though the contract had never been signed at all.

Panicked, Alaric checked his email, his fingers trembling as he opened a recent message. His name should have been there, typed in familiar bold letters at the top of the thread. But when he looked, it was gone. The email header showed only a blank space where the sender’s name should have been. His inbox was filled with communications, but as he scrolled, the absence of his name became impossible to ignore. In every thread, he was reduced to a faceless participant. It was as if he had never existed in these conversations, as if his presence had been erased from every record, every digital trace he had ever left behind.

He grabbed his phone, feverishly scrolling through old photos, hoping to find something—anything—that could prove he had once been real. The gallery was full of familiar faces—friends, family, colleagues—but his own face was slipping away. It wasn’t just in photos; it was in every image, every video, every trace of his existence. In the snapshots from his last trip, the spaces where he should have stood were empty, ghostly patches of light and shadow. He zoomed in, trying to make sense of it, but the more he examined them, the clearer it became: his image had been altered, erased, as though it had never belonged there in the first place.

In a daze, Alaric turned to his yearbook, a book that had always carried his name and face among the pages of classmates, teachers, and memories. He opened to his senior class photo, but when his eyes fell upon the page, he felt his heart stop. His face was missing. In the spot where he had stood, there was only a blank, an absence. The names of the people around him were neatly printed, their memories preserved in ink, but for him, there was only silence. He flipped through the other pages, desperate for some sign that he had existed, but every class photo, every group picture, held the same result. He was there in body, but not in name, not in memory.

The realization came slowly, but it settled into him like a stone sinking into water. He was no longer a part of the fabric of the world. He had never been. All the records, all the proof of his past, were dissolving like chalk on a rainy day. It was as if he had never been written into the world at all, as though he had been a character in a story no one ever bothered to tell. And with each passing moment, as his name dissolved further from everything he had known, Alaric felt the cold certainty that his life—his very being—was slipping out of reach, leaving behind only the faintest trace of something once real.

[Verse 1]
The pen won’t write, the ink won’t stay,
My name just slips, it fades away.
I press harder, but it’s all the same,
An empty space, a stolen name.

[Verse 2]
Emails come, but there’s no trace,
No signature, no familiar face.
I scroll through time, but what I find,
Are threads where my name’s been left behind.

[Chorus]
Where’s the proof I was here?
The records fade, the past unclear.
I try to hold what’s slipping fast,
But I’m just a shadow from the past.

[Verse 3]
I search the photos, but my face is gone,
A ghost in the frame, just moving on.
The memories bend, they start to wane,
As if I’ve never been, as if I’ve never gained.

[Verse 4]
The yearbook pages turn to dust,
A blank where my name was once a trust.
The faces linger, their memories stay,
But I’m a name that’s washed away.

[Chorus]
Where’s the proof I was here?
The records fade, the past unclear.
I try to hold what’s slipping fast,
But I’m just a shadow from the past.

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[Bridge]
How do you prove a life that’s gone?
When everything you knew is slipping on?
When the ink dries up, and the name’s erased,
How do you know if you’ve ever been in place?

[Chorus]
Where’s the proof I was here?
The records fade, the past unclear.
I try to hold what’s slipping fast,
But I’m just a shadow from the past.

[Outro]
An unwritten name, a whispered tale,
The traces fade, the memories pale.
How can you know if you’ve ever been,
When no one remembers what they never seen?

7. The Forgotten Room

Alaric Nix arrived at the door of his apartment building, his feet dragging as he made his way through the familiar entrance. He had been here for years—this was supposed to be his home, his sanctuary. He greeted the doorman, a man who had seen him through countless mornings, but today, the doorman’s gaze slid past him, as though he had never met him before. There was no recognition in his eyes. “Can I help you?” the doorman asked, his voice flat, devoid of the usual warmth. Alaric froze. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. The doorman blinked once, waiting for an answer, and then turned away, as if Alaric were just another stranger.

Confused, Alaric pushed past him and walked toward the elevator, his heart racing. The hallway seemed unnaturally quiet, the walls too pristine, too still. The usual hum of life—voices, footsteps, the sounds of neighbors—was absent, replaced by an oppressive silence. He reached his door, fumbling with the key in his pocket. His hand shook, but when he tried to insert the key into the lock, it slipped through the keyhole as if it were made of smoke. He tried again, harder this time, forcing the key into the lock, but it was useless. The key didn’t turn. It melted like vapor, slipping through his fingers, leaving nothing but an empty, inescapable feeling.

He stepped back from the door, his mind reeling. This couldn’t be happening. His apartment—the place where he had lived, where he had slept, where his things had been—was no longer his. It didn’t exist. Panic rose in his chest, suffocating him, but he forced himself to think. There had to be a mistake. He went downstairs to the building manager’s office, desperate for answers. When the door opened, the manager, a woman he had seen countless times, smiled politely at him, but her eyes did not register any familiarity. “Can I help you?” she asked, her tone cold and detached.

He stood there, a quiet disbelief settling over him. “I… I live here,” he stammered. The words felt hollow in his mouth, foreign even to him. She looked at her computer, her fingers dancing across the keys with mechanical precision. “I’m sorry,” she said after a beat, “but according to our records, we have no one by that name in our building. Perhaps you’ve mistaken the address?” Alaric stumbled back, a chill running down his spine. His breath caught in his throat, and for a moment, everything seemed to blur around him. The building, his home, had never been his to begin with. He had never been here.

With nowhere left to turn, Alaric returned to the lobby and stared at the place where his name should have been on the building’s directory. There was a blank spot, an empty space, where once, his name had been etched in ink. His apartment, his life within these walls—had all been wiped away as if it had never been. The walls, the floors, the very air around him felt hollow, as though his presence had been completely erased. And as he stood there, in the emptiness of what had once been his home, he felt an overwhelming sense of being cast out, adrift in a world that had never truly seen him.

[Verse 1]
I walk through halls that should know my name,
But they turn their eyes, they’re all the same.
The doorman’s face, a stranger’s stare,
Like I’ve never been, like I’m not there.

[Verse 2]
I reach for keys that slip through my hand,
A lock that fades like a distant land.
My door is gone, my home erased,
A hollow shell, a vanished place.

[Chorus]
Is this where I lived, is this where I belonged?
In a room that’s empty, but I’ve been here too long.
All the walls are silent, all the floors are cold,
Where did I go when my name grew old?

[Verse 3]
The manager smiles but her eyes don’t see,
The person I was, the life that used to be.
She looks at her records, but there’s no trace,
Of the name I wore, of the time I spent in this space.

[Verse 4]
I stare at the list where my name should be,
But it’s gone, it’s missing, just a blank for me.
This was my life, this was my home,
Now it’s just a place I’ve never known.

[Bridge]
Did I fade like smoke in the air?
A memory lost, but I’m still here somewhere.
The room’s forgotten, but I still try to stay,
In a place that never knew I went away.

[Outro]
I’m just a shadow in a forgotten room,
Trying to find a way out of this endless gloom.
Where do I go when the world lets me fade?
In a room where my name’s been erased.

8. The Weight of Nothing

Alaric Nix stood in the middle of his apartment, staring at his hands, his fingers trembling with frustration. The air around him felt unusually thin, as though it were made of something less solid. He took a step forward, the movement effortless, but it didn’t feel real. His feet didn’t make the familiar sound of footsteps on the floor. There was no weight to him anymore, no resistance, as though he were floating just above the ground. He tried again, stepping harder this time, but still, the floor didn’t respond. It didn’t echo his presence. It was as if the world had lost its ability to anchor him, and he had lost his connection to it.

The sensation of lightness wasn’t just physical. Inside, it was as if something vital had disappeared. He had no hunger, no thirst, no need for sleep. Time no longer held any meaning. He could sit for hours, days even, and not feel the slightest pang of discomfort. It was a strange emptiness, a detachment from the body that once demanded sustenance, rest, or even a simple breath. His body had become little more than a collection of thoughts, drifting in a space where the usual laws of survival no longer applied. The weight of life had simply evaporated.

In an attempt to grasp something, to feel something real again, Alaric moved toward the mirror. His reflection was a blur, just a shadow of what he remembered. Anger bubbled up within him, and without thinking, he clenched his fist and punched the glass. The impact was not what he expected. His fist didn’t sink into the mirror or shatter it. Instead, it passed through the surface, as though the glass had ceased to exist in the same way he once had. His hand moved through it, passing into the reflection as though it were made of air. There was no resistance, no shattering of glass. The mirror didn’t even acknowledge his touch.

Confusion and frustration swelled within him. He punched again, harder this time, but the result was the same. The glass remained perfectly intact, perfectly indifferent to his presence. Alaric stood there, staring at the mirror, his hand suspended in midair. A deep emptiness settled over him. The reflection that had once been a mirror to his soul now felt alien. He no longer recognized the man staring back at him. Who was he? A man who couldn’t be touched? A body that didn’t exist in the way it once had? His hands, his fists, and his body all seemed disconnected from the world around him, slipping through the very fabric of reality as though they were fading away, slowly but surely.

He withdrew his hand from the mirror, stepping back to survey the room. His own body felt like a shell—light, intangible, and insubstantial. There was no weight to him anymore, no solidity. He was just a phantom drifting in a world that no longer seemed to care. The longer he stood there, the more he realized that the physical world was becoming a stranger to him. His body, once a source of presence, had turned into something barely there—a whisper of what it had been, an echo of a life that had ceased to matter.

[Verse 1]
I stand in the silence, my hands feel light,
Like the world around me is fading from sight.
I move through the air, but my feet don’t fall,
The ground’s lost its grip, and I can’t recall.

[Verse 2]
I reach for the mirror, but I’m not who I see,
A shadow in the glass, a ghost staring back at me.
I strike at the surface, but it won’t break,
My hands slip through, no sound to make.

[Chorus]
I’m weightless in the world, but it’s not what it seems,
Drifting like smoke through the echoes of dreams.
I’m here but I’m gone, I’m alive but I’m not,
What do I hold when the weight is forgot?

[Verse 3]
There’s no hunger inside, no thirst for the air,
Time’s lost its meaning, I can’t feel it there.
I float in the space where the rules are undone,
No pulse in my chest, no race left to run.

[Bridge]
I punch at the mirror, but the glass turns to mist,
I reach for my soul, but it’s something I’ve missed.
The weight of my life, it’s slipping away,
I’m falling through cracks, but I can’t find the day.

[Outro]
I’m just a whisper, a breath in the void,
A man without substance, lost and destroyed.
The weight of nothing, it’s all that remains,
A body that’s empty, drifting through chains.

9. The Wind That Walks

Alaric Nix had long since lost the sense of being fully contained within his body. He was no longer a man standing in a room—he was a distortion, a bending of the air, an absence made visible only through the way light moved around him. His form was no longer a shape but a ripple in space, faint, trembling lines that seemed to stretch and warp with each passing moment. He wasn’t solid. He wasn’t anything at all. And yet, there was still some faint trace of him left, a trace that lingered in the world’s perception of him, even if it was no longer capable of fully grasping him.

It wasn’t just inanimate objects that ignored him now. People still passed him, still brushed against his presence in the most casual ways, unaware of the nothingness walking among them. He stood on the corner of a crowded street, watching a mother push her stroller. She was lost in thought, humming to herself as she walked by, but then, just for a second, she glanced toward him. Her eyes widened slightly, as if sensing something—something invisible, a presence, a change in the air. She turned her head back quickly, shaking her own thoughts off, and continued walking. A trick of the light, she thought.

But it wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t just a figment of imagination. Alaric could feel it. He was something that couldn’t be seen but still registered, a passing sensation that unsettled the world around him. His presence lingered like a whisper in the wind, leaving a faint trace behind in the minds of those who encountered it. It was as though his body had become no more than a shift in the air—a gust that carried no sound, no force, no real presence except the brief and passing discomfort it brought. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone truly looked at him, saw him, or acknowledged him as real.

Alaric moved with a new awareness. His steps, once heavy with the weight of existence, now glided like a gust of wind, light and aimless. He was aware of every slight shift in the atmosphere around him—the way the leaves rustled on the trees, the faint shift of temperature in the breeze, the way a bird’s wings seemed to bend as if the air itself were aware of his presence. He wasn’t moving through the world anymore, he was a part of it, an intangible movement within the flow of life, swept along by currents too subtle to be understood.

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And yet, despite his invisibility, there was still a sense of longing, of wanting to be seen. Alaric watched people pass by, seeing their lives unfold in front of him, their faces filled with emotion, their bodies carrying stories that he could no longer reach. He was a shadow walking in the light, a whisper amidst the roar of human connection. To them, he was nothing more than a fleeting sensation—an oddity in the air, a wind that walked beside them for just a moment before it vanished without a trace. His name was forgotten, his presence dismissed. He was less than a memory, more like an invisible mark left on the world, one that no one would ever be able to recall.

[Verse 1]
I’m a ripple in the air, a shadow on the street,
No body to hold, no soul to meet.
I’m a flicker in the light, a breeze that’s unseen,
A ghost in the world, where I’ve never been.

[Verse 2]
They pass me by, unaware I’m near,
A flicker of something, but they don’t fear.
A glance, a pause, then they turn away,
I’m just the wind that walks, gone by the end of the day.

[Verse 3]
I long to be seen, to be real again,
But I’m just a trace, a whisper in the wind.
A life once solid, now drifting away,
A memory forgotten, lost in the sway.

[Chorus]
I’m the wind that walks, but no one can hear,
A presence that lingers, but never draws near.
I’m the wind that walks, unseen and alone,
A trace left behind, but never called home.

10. The Mind Unmade

Alaric Nix sat alone in the stillness of his room, surrounded by the quiet hum of a world that no longer seemed to acknowledge him. His thoughts, once clear and sharp, had become foggy and distant. Each one slipped away before it could fully form, as though they were being erased from the inside out. He tried to remember the sound of his own voice, the rise and fall of his breath as it passed through his chest. But all that lingered was an emptiness, an echo of something that could have been, but no longer was. The words he tried to grasp faded into static, leaving only fragments behind.

The faces of his past were blurring in his mind, like smudges on a canvas that he could no longer correct. His mother’s face, his friends’ laughter, the warmth of a hand held in his—all these once vivid memories were crumbling, dissolving into nothingness. Names no longer held meaning. He would hear a name in passing, and it would stir something faint within him, but then it would slip away, like a dream upon waking. The faces of the people he thought he knew became unrecognizable, their features obscured by the growing fog that was slowly consuming his mind. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be loved or even to love.

Alaric closed his eyes, trying to hold onto something—anything. He tried to recall the color of his childhood home, the place where he had once found comfort. Was it blue? Or green? Or some shade in between? But the harder he tried, the further it slipped from his reach, like trying to capture the last remnants of a dream as it vanished into the morning light. The more he searched for the past, the more fragmented it became. His memories were becoming distorted, pulled apart by an invisible force, leaving him with a sense of deep confusion. Was it real? Was any of it real?

He couldn’t recall the sound of his own voice. When he tried to speak, nothing came out. He opened his mouth, but it was as if the very air refused to carry his words. His mind, once filled with thoughts and self-assurance, was now vacant. He had once known himself, but now, there was only the faintest outline of a man who had once been. The distinction between his past and present was blurring. How could he exist if he couldn’t even remember his own name with certainty? How could he have ever had a family, a life, or a history if he couldn’t recall any of it? The questions spiraled, but the answers remained just as elusive.

The more Alaric lingered in this mental void, the more he began to wonder if he had ever truly existed at all. Had he been someone, somewhere, or was he simply an idea, a fleeting thought in the mind of a world that was slowly forgetting him? His own self-awareness began to crack, leaving behind a sense of disembodiment. His thoughts felt less like his own and more like an echo of something that had been once, but was now being consumed by the silence. The boundaries of his existence had faded, and all that remained was a question he could no longer answer: who was he, if not a man who was disappearing from everything—even from himself?

[Verse 1]
Thoughts slip through my hands, like water in the rain,
I reach for my past, but it’s fading in the strain.
The faces blur, the names dissolve,
I’m lost in the static, can’t resolve.

[Verse 2]
I try to speak, but the air won’t hold,
I’ve forgotten myself, a story untold.
I search for my voice, but it slips away,
A shadow of a man, fading day by day.

[Chorus]
Who am I now, if I’ve lost all I’ve known?
A memory fading, a mind overthrown.
I’m slipping away, into the void of the mind,
A man unmade, no past left behind.

11. The Last Trace

Alaric Nix stood at the edge of the world, or what felt like it. Everything around him was fading—colors bled together, sounds became hollow echoes, and even the ground beneath his feet seemed insubstantial. He no longer had form. He wasn’t a man standing in a room, nor even a silhouette cast by light. He was a whisper, a trace of something that once was but no longer could be fully understood. His very existence had become a flicker, a shimmer that vanished the moment it was seen, as if the universe itself was trying to forget him. His body, if it could still be called that, had dissolved into something too intangible to hold on to.

He drifted through a crowd of people, unnoticed, like a passing breeze that rustles the leaves but leaves no mark behind. The people around him went about their lives, oblivious to his presence. It was as if he were a dream half-remembered—a fleeting thought on the edge of someone’s consciousness that was already slipping away, gone before they could place it. Faces blurred as they glanced past him, expressions unfocused, as though they had caught a brief sensation but couldn’t quite identify its source. Alaric no longer had the words, nor the strength, to make them remember. He was not seen. He was nothing more than a thought on the wind, a question left unasked.

There was no longer a need to search for himself. Every effort to anchor his identity to something—anything—was futile. He had become a sensation, like the echo of a voice that once called out in a room, now faded into nothingness. When he reached out for a person, his hand passed through them like smoke, leaving no impression. They did not feel him. They did not know he was there. He was just a flicker of thought, a brief trace in the vast, unending expanse of life, vanishing as quickly as he had appeared.

Time itself seemed to bend around him. He watched the world move forward, yet he remained suspended, like a moment suspended in amber, one that could never be truly captured. There was no feeling of past or future; there was only the present, a fractured and distant present that he could barely hold onto. It was as if time was no longer relevant to him—he had become untethered, existing in a space where nothing mattered, not even his own fading identity. He had become a part of the air, a passing sensation that lasted as long as a breath before dissipating entirely.

And yet, despite everything, there was still something that lingered, a trace of his once tangible self. It was as though his essence clung to the edges of the world, too faint to be seen but too persistent to completely vanish. Alaric Nix, in his final moments, was not a person. He was a whisper in the dark, a shimmer at the edge of perception, slipping away before anyone could grasp it. He was a dream, fading with the dawn. His memory was like the softest touch of a breeze, felt but never held, leaving no trace except the fading impression of something that once was.

[Verse]
I stand at the edge, where the world fades away,
Colors bleed, and the sounds decay.
I’m a whisper in the wind, a thought lost in time,
A trace of a man who’s no longer mine.

[Chorus]
I’m nothing now, just a breath on the air,
A fading echo, too faint to declare.
The last trace of me, slipping through the night,
A shadow of what was, lost out of sight.

12. Never Was

The world continued in its steady rhythm, oblivious to the absence of Alaric Nix. There was no hole in the fabric of reality where he had once been, no lingering question about his place or his purpose. The streets were busy, the sun rose and set, people laughed, cried, loved, and lived, and none of it had ever been interrupted by the presence of someone who could no longer be remembered. The air was as it always had been, thick with life, but there was no trace of the man who had once walked through it. Nothing had changed. The past was seamless, unbroken, as though his existence had never been.

No one ever stopped to wonder where Alaric had gone. There was no hole in the narrative of their lives, no gap that demanded an explanation. He had not been important enough to leave a mark, nor significant enough to leave a lingering void. His disappearance had been absolute, as though he had never truly existed in the first place. The people who might have known him—his colleagues, his friends, even strangers who had brushed past him—had no recollection of him at all. His name, his face, his voice—these things had all evaporated like mist in the morning sun. There was no aching absence left behind. He was simply gone, as though he had been erased before he had ever truly begun.

The world moved without interruption, as though Alaric Nix had never been a part of it. There were no whispers of his name, no sorrowful longing for what had been. Time moved forward as it always had, unburdened by the presence of someone who had no place in it. Even his reflection, the final trace of his identity, had dissolved. There was nothing now that connected him to the world—no photograph left behind, no story to tell. In a world full of people, he had left no mark. The world had no memory of him, and in that, there was no grief. There was only the smooth, unbroken flow of existence.

Alaric Nix had become a ghost, but not in the way one might think. He was not the kind of spirit that lingers in shadowed corners or in the memories of loved ones. He had not left behind a haunting absence, a broken thread in the fabric of life. He had been something so insubstantial that even the idea of him, the memory of him, could not survive the passage of time. He had existed only as a fading echo, a ripple in the stream of reality that disappeared before it could be fully realized. He was no longer a presence—he was nothing more than a passing thought that was never thought again.

In the end, there was only the smoothness of the world, whole and uninterrupted. Alaric Nix had never been a part of it, and yet, in some strange way, that absence had completed it. There was no vacancy to be filled, no loss to mourn, no name to remember. There had been no trace left of him—nothing that suggested that he had ever been anything at all. His story was never written. His existence had been a shadow on the page, a figure that never made it into the light. And in the stillness of the world, that was enough. He was never meant to be remembered. He never was.

Lyrics

I never was, a shadow in the light,
A name erased from the endless night.
No trace to leave, no path to take,
A ghost that fades with the dawn’s first wake.