Unwalked

Corven employs municipal walkers to keep its streets real. They follow route logs in every weather, putting their bodies where the map insists a road should remain.

Ivo Ren has already failed one street. Grief kept him from walking Wren Lane until it vanished, taking his friend’s last address with it. Now a demolished block is returning beneath wet footprints that appear one step ahead of anyone visible.

The city calls it a maintenance error. Ivo suspects someone never stopped walking the erased route. But one person’s devotion cannot stabilize a place everybody else chose to forget, and restitution will require visitors, not explanations.

A place survives only while bodies keep choosing to enter it.