ORION'S BEDROOM - 7:00 AM – Same day as Vr World launch.
Orion's eyes opened precisely at seven in the morning, his internal clock perfect despite the chaos of the previous day, and the first thing he noticed was that he felt good—genuinely, deeply, completely good in a way that was hard to articulate but impossible to ignore.
The overwhelming sensory chaos from last night had... settled, somehow, like muddy water left to sit until the sediment drifted to the bottom and clarity emerged, and while he could still hear Cassia's heartbeat two floors above and smell the breakfast Rene was preparing in the kitchen and feel Earth's rotation beneath him, the information wasn't overwhelming anymore, was just... there, present but manageable, notable but not demanding.
