4. A Stranger in Familiar Skin

The world slammed back into Marcus all at once—sounds, smells, sights—so sharp and vivid that they almost knocked him off his feet. He gasped, gripping the edge of the desk in front of him as his legs wobbled, threatening to give out. His heart was pounding—fast and furious, alive—so wildly different from the faint, fading rhythm he remembered in those final moments before death.

His hands caught his attention first. They were trembling, but something about them made him freeze. They looked... wrong, yet not. Smooth skin stretched over knuckles free of scars or wrinkles. Gone were the faint age spots and the stiffness he'd gotten used to over the years. These weren't the hands of a man who'd spent decades gripping whiskey glasses in late-night solitude or signing endless contracts. No. These hands were young.

His breath caught in his throat as he flexed his fingers. They moved easily, instinctively, but the sight of them was both comforting and disorienting.

What the hell is going on?

He stumbled toward the mirror hanging on the wall, the room tilting and spinning as he adjusted to his... new body? No—old body. The reflection stopped him dead in his tracks.

It was his face staring back, but not the one he'd seen in the hospital mirror before the end. This face was younger—thirty years younger. The eyes were sharp and clear, not weighed down by regret and exhaustion. His jawline was firmer, his skin smoother, and his dark hair, messy and unruly, flopped across his forehead like it had during his college days. No streaks of gray. No thinning patches.

He leaned in, pressing a hand to his cheek. The touch was real, the reflection unflinching. This wasn't a trick or a dream.

"This can't be real," he whispered, his voice catching on the words. It sounded like him, but lighter, smoother, untouched by years of shouting in boardrooms or late-night arguments.

He turned from the mirror, his eyes darting around the room. Every inch of it was painfully familiar. The desk was piled high with old textbooks and notes scrawled in his messy handwriting—philosophy, economics, business law. The posters on the walls were a snapshot of his youth: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Radiohead. They were faded and peeling at the edges, but still unmistakable. And there it was, slung over the back of the door—the leather jacket he'd worn to every party, every late-night adventure, every bad decision.

It hit him all at once. He wasn't just young again. He was back. Back in 1995.

"I'm... back," he muttered, sinking into the chair at the desk. His hands covered his face, his thoughts racing so fast he could barely keep up. The last thing he remembered was the quiet, suffocating darkness of the hospital room. The cold dread of finality. The regret that weighed so heavy on his chest as the world faded away.

And then... the light. The voices. The impossible sensation of being torn apart and stitched back together.

Now here he was. Not dead. Not old. Just... here. In his twenty-year-old body, sitting in his old college room, surrounded by everything he had left behind decades ago.

He rubbed his temples as memories collided, the weight of two lifetimes crashing into each other. He could remember the man he had been at fifty—ambitious, driven, and utterly alone. He remembered the long nights in empty offices, the missed chances, the people he had pushed away in his relentless climb to the top. He remembered dying with nothing but regrets.

But now? Now he was staring at a second chance. Somehow, impossibly, he had been thrown back to where it all began.

His stomach twisted. If this wasn't a dream—and it didn't feel like one—then how had this happened? And why? Who had done this? Was it some cosmic glitch? A divine intervention? Or was he just losing his mind?

Marcus looked down at his hands again, clenching them into fists. He had spent his entire adult life regretting what he'd done, wishing for the chance to go back and make it right. Now, that chance was staring him in the face.

But the enormity of it hit him like a weight on his chest. This wasn't just a second chance—it was a dangerous one. Changing even the smallest decision could ripple outward in ways he couldn't predict. There was no way to know what the future would look like if he started making different choices.

His jaw tightened as he stared at the desk in front of him, his younger reflection still visible in the mirror just beyond it.

"What do I do now?" he whispered to the empty room. It wasn't just a question. It was a challenge.