Wapego -

“I never left,” Kael said. And for the first time in weeks, he smiled, because he finally understood: wapego was not a thing you became. It was a thing you passed through—a hollow place where the self goes quiet so it can learn to listen.

By noon, the others in the village stopped seeing his face clearly. By dusk, his name slipped from their tongues like water off a greased leaf. Wapego was not exile—it was worse. It was being forgotten while still standing in the room. wapego

Kael closed his eyes. At first, nothing. Then a faint thrumming, like rain on a tin roof, like a heartbeat heard from inside the womb. His mother’s voice, humming. Not words. Just the shape of love before language. “I never left,” Kael said