Tyler stood paralyzed, the breath caught in his lungs as the surroundings sharpened into a painful, nostalgic clarity. He recognized this place it was home. He was back in his parents' house.

The air hung heavy with a synthetic, floral sweetness, the specific air freshener his mother always sprayed after a deep clean, a scent that clung to his memories like a ghost. In the background, the kitchen refrigerator gave a shuddering, erratic beep, a familiar mechanical heartbeat that he hadn't heard in years.

But those mundane sounds were pushed into the background, overwhelmed by the raw, jagged noise that filled the room. A muffled sobbing.

Tyler's gaze drifted downward, locking onto a small figure hunched in the corner. The child was squeezed tightly between the wall and the side of the beige sofa, curled into a desperate ball as if trying to mold himself into the shadows, to disappear entirely.

A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature swept through Tyler. He didn't just recognize the room; he felt the echo of that fear in his own bones.

That kid... the one shaking with suppressed cries...

It was him.

*What is this?* The thought hammered against his ribs, breathless and frantic.* I remember this. That's... that's me.*

Tyler took a hesitant step forward, the movement feeling heavy, as if the air in the room was thickened by the sorrow radiating from the corner. "Hey!" he called out, his voice trembling, laced with a caution that felt alien in his own throat.

He took another step, the white carpet yielding softly under his feet. The situation was bizarre, a twisted loop of reality. He was about to speak to a ghost, but not just any ghost, an echo of himself that he had entombed in the deepest recesses of his mind. This was a memory he had buried under layers of time, dismissed as dead history.

"Hey," Tyler whispered, crouching down until he was eye-level with the huddled form. He reached out a hand, hovering it just inches from the shaking shoulder, unsure if he could, or should, touch the illusion. "Don't cry."

But the boy didn't stop. The small shoulders continued to hitch with ragged, wet gasps.

The kid's forehead rested heavily on his crossed wrists, his messy black hair falling forward like a curtain, hiding his face from a world that had rejected him.

"Why..." the boy whispered, the sound small and fractured, leaking through his arms. "Why do they hate me?"

The question was a serrated blade sliding between Tyler's ribs.

His eyes widened, the pupils dilating as the full weight of the memory crashed over him. His heart skipped a beat, a physical wince of pain seizing his chest.

"This..." Tyler muttered, his voice barely audible. "This was back then."

The context flooded his mind, sharp and stinging. He knew exactly why he was crying. He remembered the sound of shattering porcelain, his father's favorite cup. His two brothers had broken it, but as always, they had twisted the narrative, pinning the blame on him. They caused the trouble, yet they always found a way to make it Tyler's fault.

It wasn't a unique event; it was a ritual. His brothers caused the chaos, and Tyler paid the price. It happened often that the memories blurred together into a singular, dull ache. By this time, he must have been twelve years old, this corner of the room had become his only sanctuary, the only place where he could hide and ask the walls the same unanswerable question.

"Hey... they don't hate you," Tyler said softly, his voice cracking. "They just..."

He reached out, desperate to offer the comfort he had been denied, moving his hand to grasp the child's trembling shoulder.

But there was no warmth. No solid purchase.

His hand passed straight through the boy's body like smoke through a grate.

Tyler recoiled, his heart spiking in his chest as he stumbled back. *What the-?* He stared at his own hand, then at the boy who hadn't reacted at all. *Right. This is just an illusion.*

The realization tasted bitter. The memory had become so painstakingly real, so visceral, that he had momentarily forgotten the truth: he was a ghost in his own history. A pang of deep, aching sorrow twisted in his gut. He wished, more than anything, that he could bridge that gap, that he could tell this kid the words he desperately needed to hear. You are not the problem.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Loud, heavy footsteps echoed from the hallway, growing louder with every second.

Tyler froze. He recognized that rhythm. It was the sound of approaching doom.

His father.

Tyler turned toward the kitchen entrance. He knew what was coming. He knew what his father held in his hand, a black belt. It was his weapon of choice, the instrument of his discipline.

Tyler's eyes widened as the figure emerged from the shadows of the hallway.

But then, the world shifted.

Tyler blinked, and in the space of a heartbeat, his perspective violently inverted.

He wasn't standing by the sofa anymore. He was standing in the doorway.

He looked down at his right hand. He was gripping the belt, the leather cold and hard against his palm.

He wasn't watching his father. He was his father. It was as if his soul had been forcibly shoved into the man's body, hijacking his senses.

And immediately, the emotions hit him, a tidal wave of toxicity that nearly buckled his knees.

It wasn't love. It wasn't concern.

It was hate. A searing, red-hot anger mixed with a suffocating sadness. But mostly, it was regret.

He looked down at his younger self, at the small, crying boy curled in the corner, and he didn't feel pity. He felt disgust. The child looked like an eyesore. A leech sucking the life out of him. A heavy, suffocating responsibility that he had never asked for, suddenly thrust upon him.

Tyler watched, trapped behind his father's eyes, as his younger self looked up.

The boy's eyes were wide, trembling with terror. He gritted his teeth, bracing for the impact. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll stop crying!"

"You're making noise," the father grunted.

His arm moved. Tyler felt the muscles contract, the black whistling through the air.

Crack.

It struck the boy squarely on the shoulder.

The child recoiled, grabbing his shoulder and wincing, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. Tyler felt a sickening lurch in his stomach. He was seeing himself strike... himself. But the emotion flooding his veins wasn't horror, it was the father's misplaced hatred and stinging annoyance.

He struck the boy again.

"Why do you always cause trouble?" the father shouted, the vibration of the yell rattling in Tyler's own chest. "What is wrong with you? Huh?"

"First it was the window. Then the TV. You're breaking everything!" The anger was irrational, a fire needing fuel. "Do you want to destroy everything in this house? Now you've broken a cup!"

The boy dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead against the carpet. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry!"

Tyler felt his heart fracture. He knew the truth. He hadn't broken the window. He hadn't broken the TV. And he certainly hadn't touched the cup. But as a child, truth didn't matter. Only the pain mattered. To make it stop, he had learned to lie. He had learned to confess to sins he never committed just to buy a moment of peace.

"Stop crying!" the father barked, looming over him. "Why are you crying?"

The boy clamped both hands over his mouth, stifling the sobs into muffled, wet hitches, desperate to be silent, desperate to disappear.

The father clicked his tongue, a sound of pure disdain. "Honestly... How the hell did I end up with a child like you?"

He turned his back on the boy.

Tyler, trapped in the body, felt the heavy, angry strides as he walked out of the room and down the corridor. The sounds of the boy's muffled weeping faded behind him.

Then, he blinked.

The perspective shattered.

The sensation of the belt in his hand vanished. The height, the anger, the heavy footsteps, all gone.

Tyler stumbled, his knees hitting the floor of the living room with a jarring thud. He was back in his own body. He stared at his empty hands, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps.

What... His eyes widened, staring at the space where he had just stood as his father. *What have I done?*

He looked down at the boy on the floor. The child had clamped both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide and darting, trying to muffle the sound of his own sobbing. He was terrified that a single audible gasp would invite another strike.

Adult Tyler stumbled to his feet, the lingering venom of his father's emotions still poisoning his blood. "I'm sorry," he choked out, the apology frantic. "I'm so sorry. I didn't... I didn't mean it."

He stopped, his breath hitching. He realized he was apologizing for thoughts that weren't his. He had seen himself through his father's eyes, seen himself as a burden, a mistake, something to be hated. The weight of that rejection crushed him.

He had to fix it. He had to comfort the boy.

"Hey, listen to me," Tyler said, reaching out again, momentarily forgetting the laws of this twisted reality.

He tried to grab the child's shoulder. But this time, his hand didn't phase through.

The moment his fingers brushed the fabric of the boy's shirt, the child collapsed into dust.

Tyler gasped as the figure disintegrated, swirling into a cloud of fine, brown ash. The sofa, the walls, the carpet, everything dissolved into that same choking brown smoke, swirling around him like a sandstorm.

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Then, the haze settled. The world revealed itself again.

He was no longer in the living room.

He was in his bedroom. The room he used to share with them.

The layout was etched into his memory. There were three beds. Against the far wall stood the sturdy bunk beds where his brothers slept, one high, one low, a fortress of their own. And then there was his bed, a solitary cot pushed into the corner, isolated from the others.

But the bed wasn't empty.

His mother was sitting there.

His younger self was lying down, his head resting on her lap. She was stroking his hair, her fingers moving in a slow, rhythmic motion that Tyler could almost feel on his own scalp. The scene radiated a soft, deceptive warmth.

"You know how your brothers are," she said softly, her voice gentle, a soothing balm that covered a deeper wound. "You know they can be harsh sometimes."

She looked down at the boy, her expression tender but dismissive. "They were just playing. Don't hate them for that, okay?"

Tyler stood there, a ghost in the room that neither of them could see. The sight of her, her face, her presence, the safety she was supposed to represent, hit him harder than the belt.

"Mom," he muttered, the word escaping his lips like a prayer.

Little Tyler wiped his tears with the back of his hand, sniffling as he looked up at her. "I know... I don't hate them," he stammered, reciting the lesson he had been taught. "You told me to love them, and I do. But... but Dad... Dad hates me."

"Oh, dear," his mother cooed, her voice soft and melodic. "Dad doesn't hate you. He loves you."

She brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. "He's simply... worried about you. He doesn't want you to grow up on the wrong path. He just wants you to be disciplined."

Adult Tyler watched from the corner of the room, a ghost haunting his own past. His hand clenched into a fist so tight his knuckles turned white. He bit his lip until he tasted iron.

*Yeah, right,* he thought, the bitterness rising like bile.* He just wants me to be disciplined.*

He looked at his mother, the woman he had idolized, the one he thought was his sanctuary.

*You're no different,* he realized, the betrayal stinging worse than the blows. *You were always just watching from the sidelines. Allowing it to happen. And all this time... I thought I was the one in the wrong. I thought I was the problem. I wanted to be so much better just to please you people.*

The memory of the father's emotions, the unadulterated hatred he had felt just moments ago, burned in his chest. It clashed violently with his mother's sweet lies.

*So I was right all along,* he muttered, a knot of despair twisting in his gut. *He really did hate me. Even though it was obvious..... you made me doubt it.*

Suddenly, he blinked.

"Huh?" he muttered, the sound swallowed by the room.

The perspective shifted violently.

He wasn't standing in the corner anymore. He was sitting on the bed.

He looked down and saw... himself. He saw his younger self lying on his lap, eyes red and puffy, looking up with desperate adoration.

It was happening again. He was wearing her skin. He was looking through his mother's eyes.

And immediately, the feelings washed over him.

He expected to feel love. He expected to feel a fierce, protective instinct.

Instead, he felt... pity.

But it was a cold, detached pity. Beneath that was a heavy, suffocating blanket of regret. And deeper still, a grinding sense of responsibility.

Tyler felt her exhaustion. He felt the sheer effort it took to force herself to sit here, to stroke this child's hair, to say the same comforting words she had said before. It felt like a chore. It was a repetitive, tiring task that she didn't want to do, a performance she was forced to put on to keep the peace.

He looked down at the crying boy, at himself, and he didn't feel a mother's warmth. He felt the weariness of a woman who wished, deep down, that she didn't have to deal with this burden. It was wearing her down, layer by layer.

"Mom," the little boy whispered.

"Yes?" Tyler replied, the word slipping out automatically, his vocal cords hijacked by her maternal script.

Little Tyler picked at a loose thread on the blanket, looking down. "The teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up today. I told her I wanted to be a police officer... but I only said that because Jason said it. I'm not really sure what I want to be."

"You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up," Tyler heard himself say, the voice smooth and practiced, offering the path of least resistance. "You can't be certain now, but in time, you will know."

Snap.

Suddenly, the connection broke. Tyler stumbled back, finding himself standing a few feet away, a spectator once again.

He watched his younger self nod, wiping the last of the tears from his cheeks. "You're right," the boy said, his voice gaining a little strength. "Actually... I was thinking I wanted to be a scientist. Yeah. I want to invent things."

The mother smiled, tilting her head. "Oh? You want to be like Mr. Maker?"

It was a reference to the show Tyler had worshipped as a kid, the man who could craft wonders and inventions out of scraps and ordinary things.

"Yeah," the boy said, chuckling a little.

Adult Tyler felt a pang in his chest seeing that smile. It was genuine. It was hopeful. But the warmth was instantly sucked out of the room by the lingering echo of his mother's emotions. He knew the truth now.

She wasn't smiling because she believed in his dream to be a scientist. She wasn't smiling because she was proud. She was smiling because he had finally stopped crying. She was just relieved that the "noise" was over, that she could go back to her peace.

The realization made the scene look grey and hollow.

Then, the world began to shake.

The bed, the walls, the smiling mother, it all crumbled into fine, brown dust, swirling away into the void.

When the dust settled, the scenery reassembled. He was still in a bedroom, but the air was heavier, charged with a suffocating tension.

Tyler looked around frantically. His mother and father were both sitting on the edge of the bed, their postures rigid and grave.

He looked at the calendar on the wall. A year had passed. He was thirteen.

Tyler's eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat as recognition slammed into him like a physical blow. He knew this scene. He knew exactly what day this was.

Of all the moments in his life, of all the beatings and the insults, this might have been the most painful memory of them all.

*Oh no,* he thought, panic clawing at his throat.

The father stood up abruptly, the motion sudden and violent. He jabbed a trembling finger toward the boy. "Look! Look at him! Does he look anything like me? Do you expect me to believe that this child is mine?"

Little Tyler shrank back, his brow furrowed in innocent confusion. "Father...?"

The mother stood up, her voice rising. "What is it that you are trying to say? I told you-"

SMACK.

The sound was sharp and sickening, echoing off the bedroom walls. The father interrupted her with a backhand slap across the face, the force snapping her head to the side.

Little Tyler froze. His breath hitched in his throat. He was paralyzed. Seeing his mother hit, the one person who had offered him crumbs of kindness, shattered something inside him. Every fiber of his being screamed to jump forward, to stop it. But time, had taught him the cruelest not interfere. You will only make it worse.

"Look at him!" the father roared, ignoring his wife's shock. "Look at his eyes! Look at even the color of his skin! We had already talked about this, and now I have confirmed it. This child isn't mine!"

Tyler watched from the side, his mind reeling. No, he thought, panic rising. "Stop it!" He shouted into the void, "What are you doing? What is the point of showing me this!!?"

He blinked.

The world shifted.

He was no longer watching. He was wearing his father's skin again.

*No,* he whispered mentally, a desperate plea echoing inside a skull that wasn't his. He knew what was about to happen. He was about to feel it.

And then, the feelings settled in like icy sludge in his veins.

He looked down at the boy.

He saw Tyler. He saw the black hair. He saw the piercing blue eyes.

He compared them to his other children, the ones with warm brown eyes, the ones with lighter, fair skin that matched his own. Tyler's skin was more tanned, an olive shade that stood out like a sore thumb. He looked so different. He looked... foreign.

*This isn't my son*, the thought rang out with the clarity of a judge's gavel.* This is the result of her unloyalty.*

The boy standing before him wasn't his child. He was a financial and emotional responsibility that he had always suspected wasn't supposed to be his. The suspicion that had festered for years had hardened into ugly certainty.

Immediately, the mother spoke, her hand clutching her reddening cheek. "John, stop this," she pleaded, her voice trembling. "Not in front of Tyler."

"Shut up!" the father roared, the veins in his neck bulging. "Not in front of Tyler? Not in front of this kid who isn't even my son?"

He stared at her, his eyes wild with betrayal. "You're not even disagreeing... You whore!"

SMACK.

He slapped her again, harder this time. The sound was like a gunshot in the small room.

"Father, stop!" Little Tyler screamed, his voice shrill with panic.

The father whirled around, looming over the boy like a collapsing tower. "Shut it! You... you don't even deserve to be in this family. Do you know what your mother did?" He pointed a trembling finger at the woman sobbing on the bed. "You are not my son. Your mother committed a sin. And you... you are just the thing that came from it."

Little Tyler's eyes widened, the blue irises trembling. He had been raised in this house. He had been groomed to follow the rules, to understand morality. He knew what that word meant.It meant adultery. It meant betrayal.

But his heart refused to accept the logic.

He shook his head violently, tears streaming down his face. "No... You're my father. You're my dad!"

He stepped forward, reaching out.

The father shoved him.

It wasn't a playful push; it was a rejection. Tyler stumbled back and fell hard onto his rear, looking up at the man he worshipped through a blur of tears.

The father looked down at him, his expression cold and empty. "I don't even want to look at you."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving the door open to the hallway's darkness.

Immediately, Adult Tyler's perspective shifted.

But he didn't return to his own body. He was yanked violently across the room.

He was inside his mother.

He felt the sting on her cheek where she had been slapped. He felt the hot tears running down her face. But mostly, he felt the emotion in her chest.

It wasn't fear of her husband. It wasn't love for her son.

It was regret.

Deep, crushing, suffocating regret. A remorse so heavy it made it hard to breathe. She wasn't sorry that Tyler was hurting; she was sorry for the mistake she had made years ago. She was sorry that the evidence of that mistake was standing right in front of her.

Little Tyler stood up from the floor, trembling. He walked over to the bed and reached out a tentative hand to touch her lap. "Mother?"

She looked at the boy, at the living proof of her infidelity, and she couldn't bear it.

"No," she choked out, pulling away. "Get out." Her voice rose to a desperate shriek. "Get out of this room!"

Little Tyler froze, his hand hovering in the air. The rejection was total. His father hated him. His mother couldn't look at him.

He turned and ran, his small feet pounding against the floorboards as he fled the room, wailing.

The connection was severed. Tyler was violently ejected from his mother's body.

The bedroom, the crying woman, the fleeing child, it all dissolved into absolute blackness.

He was back in the Void.

There was nothing around him but the cold, sticky darkness. Tyler stumbled back, his legs giving out, and he fell onto the unseen floor. Tears, real tears, hot and stinging, streamed from his eyes.

He clutched his chest, gasping for air, the phantom emotions of his parents still raging inside him like a poison.

"Why?" he sobbed into the silence, his voice raw. "Why are you making me feel what they felt? Why are you making me hate myself?"

Tyler sat in the darkness of his own mind, the memories flowing not as scenes he was forced to relive, but as a narrative he couldn't stop reciting.

He knew what happened after that day. The house didn't explode; it went quiet. And the silence was worse.

His father changed. The beatings stopped, but not out of mercy. They stopped because his father no longer saw the point. You discipline a child you care about, a child you want to mold. You don't discipline a stranger. His father simply ceased to acknowledge his existence, looking through him as if he were a pane of glass.

The whispers started. His brothers, emboldened by the truth, would hiss behind cupped hands that he wasn't really their brother. They became distant, guarding their family circle like a fortress he was no longer allowed to enter. Even his mother... she retreated into a shell of avoidance, unable to meet his eyes without flinching.

School became a blur of gray. He started failing his classes, his grades plummeting as his focus fractured under the weight of his isolation.

And then came the exile.

He was sent away to a boarding school, packed off like unwanted luggage, while his brothers continued to go to school from the comfort of home. It wasn't an education; it was a disposal. They were driving him out, inch by inch, washing their hands of the mistake.

When he finally finished, and failed, his father's reaction was the final insult. There was no shouting.

"Okay," his father had said, his voice flat, eyes scanning a newspaper he didn't lower. "It happens. You can take a remedial course. Or you can go work at your cousin's in the city. Construction."

Tyler had clung to a shred of hope. He chose the course. He wanted to learn, to prove he could be something.

But then came the excuse.

"We don't have the money," they told him. The money had been spent on his brothers, the successful ones, the real sons who had passed their grades.

So, Tyler was shipped off to the city. To the construction site.

The work was grueling. The air was thick with cement dust that coated his lungs, and his muscles screamed in constant agony. He was paid less than the others, a pittance for the labor he provided. The foreman saw his slumped shoulders, his averted eyes, his utter lack of confidence, and he feasted on it, exploiting Tyler for every ounce of sweat he had.

And that... that was where he met him.

A faint, genuine smile broke through Tyler's tears in the void.

Mike.

The memory of him was the only splash of color in a world of sepia tones. Tyler remembered the silly jokes that made no sense but made them laugh anyway. He could almost smell the sickly-sweet scent of the cheap energy drinks Mike was addicted to, could hear the crack-hiss of the tab opening.

He remembered Mike's terrible advice, delivered with supreme confidence, that usually led to trouble but always made for a good story.

But mostly, he remembered the concern. It was the first time someone had looked at him and asked, "You okay, man?" and actually waited for an answer.

They had rented a cramped, peeling apartment together. It was a dump, but it was their dump. They helped each other scrape by. For a while, Mike helped him forget the suffocating weight of his past and actually look toward a future.

But reality had a way of intervening.

Mike was... lucky. Or maybe just unburdened. He didn't have to work as hard to be seen.

Tyler looked for better jobs, applying until his hands cramped, but he failed every time. The rejection letters were always the same: Not qualified. He didn't have the grades. The shadow of his schooling haunted him, a wall he couldn't climb.

But Mike? Mike moved effortlessly. He went from job to job, climbing the ladder, moving forward while Tyler remained stuck in the cement, watching his friend drift further and further toward a sunlight he couldn't reach.

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