…static… a gasp — sharp, wet, too young.
Lumayon didn't open his eyes. He felt them — small, soft, unlined. The weight of eyelids too light to be his. The air tasted of antiseptic and warm milk. Not ozone. Not rain. Not time.
He was lying down. Not on cold tile or cracked concrete — on a mattress. Thin. Squeaky. A hospital cot? A child's bed? He didn't know. But his fingers — tiny, curled into fists — twitched against cotton sheets. Muscle memory screamed *scalpel*, but the hands were wrong. Too small to hold one. Too soft to have ever cut.
He remembered screaming.
He remembered the watch.
He remembered the child's voice — "You're going to destroy everything."
But now… now he was here.
And "here" smelled like safety. Like forgetting.
A door creaked open.
Footsteps — slow, deliberate.
A woman's voice, gentle, laced with something he couldn't name. Not warmth. Not fear. Regret.
"Lumayon? Sweetheart… it's time to wake up."
He didn't want to.
He couldn't.
Because if he opened his eyes, he'd see the face he'd glimpsed before — blurred, in white, whispering " You should have wake up early."
But the voice… it wasn't Dr. Mendoza.
It was softer. Younger.
Familiar — like a lullaby he'd forgotten he knew.
He forced his eyes open.
A woman stood over him.
Not in a lab coat.
In a faded sweater.
Her eyes were blue — not the child's icy blue, but warm, tired, human.
She smiled.
It didn't reach her eyes.
"You had a bad dream again, didn't you?" she whispered, brushing hair from his forehead.
Her touch was real.
Her breath smelled like mint tea.
Her hands — calloused, but gentle — belonged to someone who'd held him before.
Many times.
He tried to speak.
His voice came out small.
"Who… are you?"
Her smile faltered.
Just for a second.
Then she leaned down, kissed his forehead, and whispered:
"You know who I am, Lumayon.
You always have."
He didn't.
But his body did.
His chest tightened.
His throat burned.
He wanted to cry — not from fear, but from recognition.
Like a song he'd hummed in another life.
He looked down at his hands again.
Tiny. Pink. Unscarred.
No calluses. No tremors.
No memory of holding a scalpel.
No memory of a fracture.
But beneath the skin — deep, humming, alive — he felt it.
The fracture.
Not in the walls.
Not in the clock.
Not in the mirror.
In him.
And it was waking up too.
The woman straightened, smoothing her sweater.
"Breakfast is ready," she said, turning toward the door.
Then she left.
Lumayon sat up.
The room was small.
Toys on the floor.
A stuffed bear with one eye missing.
A drawing taped to the wall — crayon sun, stick-figure family, a child with gray hair and blue eyes, labeled "Lumayon."
Lumayon sat at the kitchen table, pushing scrambled eggs around his plate. They were yellow. Too yellow. Like paint. He poked one with his fork. It didn't jiggle. It just… sat there.
"Eat up, sweetheart," the woman said—Mom, his body insisted on calling her—wiping her hands on her apron. She didn't look at him. Just at the sink, scrubbing a bowl like it owed her money.
He took a bite. It tasted like nothing. Not bad. Not good. Just… empty. Like chewing air that had been chewed before.
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
7:42 AM.
The hands were still.
He blinked. They moved again.
Did they stop? Or did I imagine it?
"You're not eating," Mom said. Not a question. An observation. She was good at those—the kind that sounded like concern but felt like surveillance.
"Not hungry," he whispered.
She finally looked at him. Her eyes were tired. The kind of tired that came from years of holding something back. "You need to eat. You need to be strong."
Strong for what?
He didn't ask. Instead, he forced another bite down. The eggs tasted like the word "normal."
Mom turned back to the sink. "After breakfast, you'll get dressed. Then we'll head to school. Just like always."
Just like always.
But he'd never been to this school. He'd never lived in this house. He'd never been this small.
Yet his body knew the routine. His hands moved to the orange juice glass without thinking. His feet knew the height of the chair. His mouth knew how to swallow without choking on a throat that felt borrowed.
This wasn't memory.
This was muscle memory wearing a dead man's skin.