Ray woke well before the alarm he had set the night before.
For a while, he didn't move.
He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused as if he were looking through it rather than at it. The room was quiet, the early morning stillness wrapping around him like a thin layer of calm that he couldn't quite settle into.
Sleep had not come easily.
Even when it had, it hadn't lasted long.
He wasn't sure why.
Perhaps it was because he was back here—back in this room, in this bed, after so many years. The familiarity of it all felt strange, almost unsettling, like stepping into a version of himself that no longer existed.
Or perhaps it was something else.
The real reason he had come back.
That thought lingered at the edge of his mind, persistent and impossible to ignore.
Ray let out a slow breath and remained where he was, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as memories began to surface, one after another, uninvited and vivid.
