CHAPTER 2: ROOM 237

Marcus didn't leave his room for the rest of the day. He sat on the edge of the bed, turning the photograph over and over in his hands until the edges softened further beneath his thumbs. The silver-eyed man stared back at him, unchanging, patient, like he'd been waiting a century for Marcus to finally ask the right questions.

*Prometheus, 1924.*

The words made no sense. The photograph made no sense. Marcus made no sense, sitting in a sterile luxury room with no memory of how he'd gotten here, clutching a picture of himself that shouldn't exist.

He should have been panicking, and demanding answers, pounding on the door until someone explained what kind of sick psychological experiment this was. Instead, he felt hollowed out, like someone had scooped out his insides and left only the shell.

When the nurse returned hours later with a tray of food he didn't touch, she informed him in that same unnervingly pleasant voice that he'd been assigned a roommate.

"A roommate?" Marcus's voice came out flat. "I thought this was a rehabilitation facility."

"It is." She set the tray on the nightstand, her smile never wavering. "Prometheus House believes in the healing power of community. You'll be sharing accommodations with Mr. Ashford. He's been here a few weeks longer than you. I'm sure he'll help you acclimate."

She left before Marcus could argue.

The idea of sharing space with a stranger made his skin crawl. He didn't want community. He wanted answers. He wanted to understand why his last memory was of sitting in his San Francisco office, reviewing code for the new algorithm update, and then nothing. Just a black hole where time should have been, and now this place, and that photograph, and the growing certainty that something was very, very wrong.

The door opened again at dusk.

Marcus looked up from where he'd been staring at the photograph for the hundredth time. A man stepped inside, carrying a worn leather messenger bag and moving with the kind of fluid grace that made the air around him seem thicker, slower, like he was walking through water while the rest of the world stood still.

Marcus's breath caught.

The man was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Not handsome in the conventional sense, though he was that too—high cheekbones, a straight nose, a mouth that curved naturally into something between amusement and melancholy. It was something deeper. Something in the way he held himself, shoulders relaxed, head slightly tilted as if listening to music no one else could hear. His skin was the color of honey in sunlight, smooth and luminous. His hair fell in soft waves past his shoulders, catching the fading light from the window and turning it into something molten.

His eyes were silver.

Marcus shot to his feet, the photograph slipping from his fingers and fluttering to the floor.

The man paused, gaze dropping to the fallen photograph, then lifting to meet Marcus's stare. His expression didn't change. He looked at Marcus the way someone might look at an old friend they'd been expecting, with a mixture of familiarity and quiet resignation.

"You must be Marcus." His voice was low, textured, like smoke over velvet. He set his bag down on the second bed, the one Marcus hadn't noticed tucked against the opposite wall. "I'm Silas Ashford. I'm told we'll be sharing space for a while."

Marcus couldn't speak. His pulse hammered against his ribs, too fast, too loud. He stared at Silas, at the silver eyes that matched the photograph exactly, at the face that could have been carved from memory itself.

Silas bent down, picked up the photograph, and held it out to Marcus.

Their fingers brushed.

Ice shot through Marcus's hand, sharp and sudden, like plunging his fist into snow. He jerked back, cradling his hand against his chest. Silas's expression flickered, something unreadable passing behind those pale eyes, before settling back into calm.

"Sorry," Silas murmured, though he didn't sound sorry. He sounded resigned. "I run cold."

Marcus forced himself to breathe. "Who are you?"

"I just told you. Silas Ashford."

"No." Marcus's voice cracked. He gestured at the photograph now clutched in Silas's hand. "Who are you really? That's you. In the photograph. From 1924."

Silas looked down at the photograph. His thumb traced the edge of the image, slow and deliberate, and for a moment something raw and aching crossed his face before he smoothed it away. "Is it?"

"Don't play games with me."

"I'm not." Silas handed the photograph back, careful not to let their skin touch again. "I don't know what you want me to say, Marcus. That photograph is old. I'm not. Unless you think I'm a hundred and twenty-four years old."

He said it lightly, almost teasingly, but there was something brittle underneath. Something that made Marcus's chest tighten.

"Then why do you look exactly like the man in this picture?"

Silas turned away, moving toward his bed with that same unsettling grace. He sat down, legs crossed at the ankle, hands folded in his lap. Everything about his posture screamed control, but his knuckles were white where they pressed together.

"People have doppelgängers," Silas said quietly. "Faces repeat across time. Maybe you found a photograph of mine."

"A photograph of *ours*," Marcus corrected. "That's me standing next to you."

Silas's gaze flicked up, sharp and assessing. "Is it?"

The question landed wrong, skidding sideways through Marcus's mind. Was it him? He'd assumed, of course he'd assumed, because the resemblance was uncanny. They were the same height, same build, same dark hair and sharp jaw. But now, under Silas's steady stare, doubt crept in like cold water seeping through cracks.

"I don't know," Marcus admitted. His voice came out hoarse. "I don't know anything anymore."

Silas's expression softened, just slightly. "Welcome to Prometheus House."

They sat in silence. Marcus sank back down onto his bed, photograph clutched in his fist, watching Silas unpack with methodical efficiency. A few changes of clothes. A book with a cracked spine. A small leather journal. No phone. No laptop. No connection to the outside world.

"What are you here for?" Marcus asked finally.

Silas paused, a gray sweater folded over his arm. "Existential dysphoria."

"That's not a real diagnosis."

"Isn't it?" Silas's mouth curved into something that might have been a smile if it had reached his eyes. "I'm a musician. I forgot how to play, why I played, and even what music was supposed to mean to me." He placed the sweater in a drawer, his movements slow and deliberate. "They say that's dysphoria. A disconnect between who you are and what you're supposed to be."

"That sounds like depression."

"Maybe." Silas closed the drawer. "What about you? What brings Marcus Webb to the most exclusive psychiatric facility in Northern California?"

Marcus opened his mouth, and then closed it. He didn't have an answer. He couldn't remember deciding to come here, couldn't remember anything except waking up three days into a stay he didn't recall beginning.

"I don't know," he said again.

Silas nodded, like that made perfect sense. "Most of us don't."

There was weight in those words, something ancient and tired that made Marcus's skin prickle. He watched Silas move toward the bathroom, watched the way the fading sunlight seemed to pass through him rather than land on him, leaving no shadow on the wall.

Marcus stood abruptly. "I need to use the bathroom."

Silas stepped aside without a word, that strange half-smile still playing at his lips.

Marcus locked the bathroom door behind him. His hands were shaking. He gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles going white, and forced himself to look up.

His reflection stared back. Hollow-eyed, pale, and real.

He turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on his face. The shock of it helped to ground him. He straightened, reaching for the towel hanging on the rack, and froze.

Silas was standing in the doorway.

Marcus spun around.

The doorway was empty.

He turned back to the mirror.

Silas stood behind him in the reflection, one hand resting lightly on the doorframe, silver eyes watching him with something that might have been curiosity or might have been pity.

Marcus looked over his shoulder. The doorway remained empty.

He looked back at the mirror. Silas was gone from the reflection too.

The photograph slipped from Marcus's fingers into the sink. Water darkened the edges, bleeding through the paper, and Marcus gripped the porcelain so hard his hands went numb.

Silas cast no reflection.

Marcus's pulse roared in his ears, drowning out everything else. He turned off the water with shaking hands, grabbed the photograph, and stumbled back into the main room.

Silas sat on his bed, book open in his lap, looking for all the world like a man who'd been reading peacefully for the past ten minutes.

"You don't have a reflection," Marcus said.

Silas didn't look up from his book. "Don't I?"

"I just saw—" Marcus stopped. What had he seen? Silas in the doorway, visible only in the mirror. Silas's absence where his reflection should have been. "You weren't there. In the mirror. You weren't there."

Silas turned a page. "Mirrors are tricky things. They show us what we expect to see. Or what we're afraid to see. Depends on the day."

"That's not an answer."

"No," Silas agreed quietly. He closed the book, finally meeting Marcus's eyes. "It's not."

The air between them felt charged, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes. Marcus wanted to grab Silas by the shoulders, shake him, demand the truth. He wanted to run. He wanted to understand why his chest ached looking at this impossible man with his silver eyes and his ice-cold skin and his complete absence in mirrors.

Instead, he whispered, "What are you?"

Silas's expression went very still. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible, threaded with something that sounded like grief.

"I'm whatever you need me to be."

The lights flickered once, twice, then the room plunged into darkness, and in that perfect black silence, Marcus heard Silas whisper three words that made his blood run cold.

"Welcome home, Michael."