The morning began without sound.
Ezra opened his eyes to pale light creeping through the blinds. For a moment, he lay still, uncertain if he'd actually woken or if this was another layer of that strange, medicated sleep. The air in the room felt too still, too heavy.
He turned his head. The clock read 8:37.
He waited for the usual noise — his mother's voice from the kitchen, the clatter of dishes, Sophie's laughter, Vale's music spilling from his room. But nothing came.
Only silence.
He sat up slowly, rubbing at his temples. The ache from last night still lingered, that deep soreness in his ribs, the memory of pain that didn't belong to any wound. He pushed the thought away and stood, the floor cold beneath his bare feet.
"Mom?"
His voice sounded small.
No answer.
He stepped into the hallway. The door to Sophie's room was open — bed empty, blanket half-folded. Vale's room, the same. His father's office — still, the chair slightly turned as if someone had just left.
He moved faster, checking each room, each corner. Nothing. No sign of life. Not even the faint trace of cooking in the air.
The house wasn't messy, wasn't robbed, wasn't burned. It was paused — like the moment after a film reel stopped spinning.
His breath quickened.
"Mom!"
His voice echoed back to him, too loud, too hollow.
He reached the kitchen, heart racing, when his eyes caught the folded paper on the coffee table. It sat in the center, perfectly placed.
Ezra froze.
He stepped closer.
The paper was plain, slightly damp from the humid air, edges curled. On it, in neat, black ink, was written:
Come to "Monday-Avenue".
That was all.
No names. No handwriting he recognized. Just those four words.
Ezra stared at it for a long time, his pulse pounding. Monday Avenue was a luxury hotel by the beach — he remembered it vaguely, a place his father had once mentioned in passing. He tried to think rationally, to find sense, but his mind refused to settle.
He grabbed his jacket, the compass watch, and the pill bottle — though he didn't remember why. The house felt smaller the more he stayed inside, as though the walls were closing in.
When he stepped outside, the sky was overcast again, heavy with unshed rain.
The city felt strange — not empty, but blurred. Cars passed, people hurried, yet every sound seemed filtered through glass.
He walked fast. Too fast. The note's words circled in his head: Come to Monday Avenue. Come to Monday Avenue.
By the time the beach air reached him, his breathing had turned shallow.
Monday Avenue rose like a cathedral of glass and chrome against the pale morning. The waves behind it crashed faintly, their sound buried under the hush of the wind.
He stopped in front of the hotel's entrance — tall revolving doors, gold handles gleaming.
The doorman smiled politely, as if nothing was strange about a drenched, trembling man staring up at the building like it was alive.
Ezra hesitated at the threshold. The compass in his pocket ticked once — faint, mechanical — and stopped.
He took a breath.And stepped inside.
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