HE'S NOT REAL, BUT HE'S MINE

The ceiling was pristine white, and unmarked by water stains, cracks or the fingerprints of time. Marcus stared at it, his breath shallow, pulse ticking at his throat like something trapped beneath skin. The air smelled wrong and sterile, with lavender and lemon polish masking something medicinal underneath. His tongue felt thick, his mouth dry as old paper.

Where the hell was he?

He tried to sit up. His body protested, muscles stiff and uncooperative, as if he'd been lying still for days. Weeks even. The room came into focus in fragments: pale gray walls, a sleek leather chair in the corner, floor-to-ceiling windows framing a view of redwoods and fog. It looked expensive, minimalist. The kind of place that whispered luxury while making you feel like an intruder in your own skin.

A hotel? No. Hotels had souls, even the soulless ones. This place felt scrubbed clean of personality, like someone had taken an eraser to the air itself.

Marcus swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet touched cold hardwood. The temperature shot up his calves, sharp and clarifying. He was wearing clothes he didn't recognize: soft cotton pants, a loose gray shirt. He had no shoes, no wallet in his pockets, and no phone.

Panic flickered, distant and muted, like watching smoke through glass.

He stood, swayed, caught himself on the edge of a nightstand. His reflection stared back from a mirror mounted on the opposite wall. Dark disheveled hair, stubble heavier than he usually let it get, shadows beneath his eyes deep enough to drown in. He looked exhausted. Hollowed out.

He looked like a man who'd been screaming.

The door opened without a knock.

A woman stepped inside, clipboard in hand, wearing scrubs the color of seafoam. Her smile was practiced, pleasant, the kind that never quite reached the eyes. She was young, maybe thirty, with her hair pulled back into a tight bun and the posture of someone who'd learned to move through rooms without making noise.

"Mr. Webb. You're awake." Her voice was soft, almost musical. It grated against him. "How are you feeling?"

Marcus blinked. His name on her lips sounded foreign. "I don't—" His voice cracked. He swallowed, tried again. "Where am I?"

"Prometheus House." She said it like it explained everything. "You've been here for three days."

Three days.

The words landed wrong, skipping across the surface of his mind like stones on water. Three days. He searched for memories, clawed through the fog in his head for anything concrete. There was nothing. No car ride, no intake forms, no decision to come here. Just a black space where time should have been.

"I don't remember checking in."

Her smile didn't falter. "That's normal. A lot of our patients experience disorientation at first. Your body needed rest, Mr. Webb. You've been through a significant trauma."

"What trauma?"

She tilted her head, studying him the way a scientist might study a specimen pinned to a board. "You don't remember?"

He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the answer out of her. "No."

"That's all right. Dr. Cross will be by later to speak with you. In the meantime, try to relax. You're safe here."

Safe. The word tasted like a lie.

She left before he could ask anything else, the door clicking shut behind her with a finality that made his chest tighten. He turned back to the mirror, pressing his palms flat against the cool surface, leaning in close enough to fog the glass with his breath.

There was something wrong with his eyes. They looked too wide, too dark, like they'd seen something they couldn't unsee.

Marcus stepped back. His gaze dropped to the nightstand. A glass of water sat beside a folded towel, and beneath that, the corner of something leather peeked out from under the fabric.

His wallet.

Relief punched through him, immediate and visceral. He grabbed it, flipped it open. His driver's license stared back: Marcus Webb, 28, San Francisco address. Credit cards still tucked into their slots. Sixty dollars in cash, and a photograph.

He pulled it free, fingers trembling.

The photo was old, edges softened with age, the colors slightly faded. It showed two men standing side by side in front of a building Marcus didn't recognize. One of them was him. Same sharp jawline, same dark hair, same build. He was smiling, his arm slung casually around the shoulders of the man beside him.

The other man was devastatingly beautiful.

Golden skin, high cheekbones, a mouth curved into something between a smile and a secret. His hair fell in soft waves to his shoulders, catching the light like spun honey. Marcus's breath hitched, his pulse spiking as his gaze locked on the man's eyes.

He had eyes of silver. They were pale, luminous silver, like moonlight on water.

He didn't know this person. He was certain of that. He would have remembered someone who looked like that. Would have remembered the easy intimacy in the way they stood together, the way Marcus's past self looked at the stranger like he was the only solid thing in a world made of smoke.

He flipped the photo over. There was writing on the back, faint and faded:

*Prometheus, 1924.*

Marcus's hands went numb.

1924. That was a hundred years ago. The photograph should have been ancient, crumbling, locked away in some archive. It shouldn't exist. And he definitely shouldn't be in it.

He turned the photo back over, staring at the silver-eyed man, at the way the stranger's hand rested lightly on his chest, fingers splayed like he was feeling for a heartbeat.

The room tilted. Marcus sat down hard on the edge of the bed, the photograph clutched in his fist. His pulse roared in his ears, loud and insistent, drowning out everything else.

He didn't know where he was, how he'd gotten here, or why three days of his life had vanished like smoke.

All he knew was this: the man in the photograph was real, somewhere, and Marcus had the unshakable, bone-deep certainty that finding him was the only thing that mattered.

The mirror on the wall caught his reflection again. For just a second, a fraction of a heartbeat, Marcus saw someone else staring back. Someone with older eyes and a scar above his left brow that Marcus didn't have.

Then it was gone.

He looked down at the photograph. The silver-eyed man smiled back, frozen in time, waiting.

Marcus whispered into the empty room, his voice hoarse and desperate.

"Who are you?"