San Diego — August 11, 2001
The first thing Ethan noticed was the silence.
Not the dead, heavy silence of his 2020 apartment — the kind filled with unpaid bills, stale air, and regret — but a soft, early-morning quiet. The kind you only hear in small neighborhoods, where sprinklers tick rhythmically and birds sit on telephone wires instead of fleeing burning city streets.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
He lay perfectly still, feeling the smoothness of the sheets beneath him — sheets he hadn't slept in for almost two decades. The mattress was stiff in a familiar way. The air didn't smell like dust or city smoke. It smelled like detergent and sunlight and something achingly nostalgic.
His heart began pounding.
Slowly.
Steadily.
Disbelievingly.
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him wasn't cracked and flaking. It was clean, off-white, and decorated with tiny glow-in-the-dark stars he remembered sticking up there when he was fifteen.
He blinked.
"…no way."
He sat up too fast. The room around him came into focus — the posters, the cluttered desk, the old green dresser. Everything was arranged exactly the way it was the summer he turned eighteen. His childhood bedroom.
A chill ran through him.
He threw the blanket aside and stumbled toward the desk. His legs almost gave out — they felt too light, too strong, too young. He reached the wall calendar above the desk, grabbed it, and stared.
AUGUST 2001.
His hands shook as he thumbed through the weeks, then stared at the bold red marker circle he distinctly remembered drawing:
"Move to LA for auditions — Sept 3rd."
His breath caught.
This wasn't a dream.
It couldn't be.
He looked down at his arms. Smooth. No scars. No ink. No burns from restaurant work. No tremor from stress. His hands — God, his hands — were the hands of an eighteen-year-old boy who still believed the world might open for him.
He stumbled toward the mirror.
He wasn't prepared.
His reflection was young.
Too young.
His jaw sharper, his skin clear, his hair thick. The face that looked back at him was the face he had mourned — the one he thought he'd never see again.
He gripped the sink.
"What… what is happening…?"
His voice cracked into a whisper.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, the reflection didn't change.
A sudden sound snapped him back.
A knock.
A familiar voice he had not heard since—
"Ethan? Sweetheart? You up?"
His mother.
His mother.
Not the soft, fragile voice she had in 2018.
Not the rasping cough he heard in her last months.
Not the tired woman who faded before he could give her the life he promised.
This was her young, strong, vibrant voice.
The one he would give anything to hear again.
His chest tightened painfully.
The door opened a crack.
"You overslept," she said playfully. "Breakfast's almost ready."
Ethan froze.
His throat closed.
He couldn't breathe.
He stared at her as if watching a ghost made of skin and sunlight.
She frowned lightly. "Honey? Are you alright?"
He didn't trust his voice, so he nodded.
Barely.
"Well," she said, half smiling, "come eat before your father steals all the pancakes."
She shut the door gently.
Silence swallowed the room.
Ethan's emotions collided all at once — joy, grief, disbelief, terror, hope. He pressed a hand to his chest.
He was here.
Really here.
He staggered back to the bed, sank into the mattress, and let himself feel it. The weight of two timelines pressed inside him like twin storms colliding.
He remembered falling asleep in 2020 — cold, alone, angry at the world, angry at himself.
He remembered wishing he could start over.
Just once.
Just differently.
And now…
"Jesus," he whispered. "I'm back."
He rubbed his face, trying to force logic into the impossible. Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was some elaborate hallucination. Maybe—
His flip phone buzzed loudly on the nightstand.
Flip phone.
He picked it up, flipping it open. A text blinked on the tiny monochrome screen.
Matt: bro rehearsal at 2. Don't be late again lol
Matt.
His high school friend.
A name he hadn't seen in fifteen years.
Ethan laughed — a wild, shaky breath of disbelief.
He was really back.
His mind raced through all the implications.
He knew the future.
He knew where Hollywood would go.
Who would become famous.
Which auditions mattered.
Which people were dangerous.
Which mistakes would break him.
Which chances did he miss the first time.
He could avoid everything that ruined him.
He could protect people.
He could defend himself.
He could become the actor he never became.
Slowly, a calm resolve settled over him — a power he never had at eighteen.
This wasn't a miracle.
This wasn't punishment.
This was a second chance.
A loud knock interrupted his thoughts.
"Ethan! Come on!" his father yelled from downstairs. "Breakfast is getting cold!"
He inhaled deeply.
Steeled himself.
Then stood.
He opened the door to the hallway — sunlight filling the walls he once thought he'd never see again.
He took the steps down slowly, like he was retracing the path of a memory made flesh. His parents sat at the table — young, vibrant, alive.
His mother looked up and smiled warmly.
"There's my sleepy boy."
Ethan swallowed, blinked hard, and forced himself to smile back.
"Morning," he said.
The word cracked.
His mother heard it but said nothing.
He sat down.
His father slid him a plate.
"You look strange," his dad said bluntly. "Everything okay?"
Ethan nodded. "Yeah… I think so."
"So, what's the plan today?" his father asked, digging into pancakes.
Ethan stared at the food.
This moment — this simple, ordinary breakfast — was something he had prayed for in the darkest nights of his first life.
He breathed in, and something in him hardened into determination.
"The plan?" Ethan said quietly.
They both looked at him.
He met their eyes — steady, certain, reborn.
"I'm going to fix my life."
His parents exchanged confused glances, but Ethan didn't elaborate.
He didn't need to.
He knew exactly where to begin.