The first thing he heard was the ceiling fan.
It wasn't loud, exactly. It just had that tired rattle to it—plastic and metal slightly out of agreement—like it had been turning for years and didn't plan on stopping now. The sound rose and fell with every rotation, steady enough to fade into background noise if you lived with it long enough.
He hadn't lived with it in a long time.
His eyes were already open when he realized that. He stared up at the ceiling, at the faint shadow of the blades circling, and waited for the feeling to pass. Sometimes waking up came with a leftover dream clinging to you. Sometimes your brain played a trick and made you think you were somewhere else for a second.
This wasn't a second.
He sat up.
The mattress dipped beneath him with a soft squeak. Springs pressed into his back through a thin layer of padding. His feet touched carpet that felt rougher than he remembered, flattened in the places where someone had walked the same path a thousand times.
The room around him was wrong.
No—worse.
The room around him was right.
A desk crowded against the wall. A bulky monitor sitting on it. A plastic alarm clock with red numbers that always seemed too bright at night. Posters he hadn't thought about in years. A dresser with a dent in the corner where it had been slammed into a doorframe during a move he'd barely remembered until now.
His throat tightened.
Not panic. Not fear. More like the pressure of something huge trying to settle into a space it didn't belong.
He stood, too quickly, and the world tilted. He steadied himself with a palm pressed to the desk. His hand looked smaller. His fingers looked thinner.
He looked down at his arm.
The skin was smoother. The muscle beneath it was there, but not developed. Not the body he'd lived in for years. Not the one that had carried adult weight and adult exhaustion.
His heartbeat picked up.
He didn't let it turn into a spiral. He'd had enough of spirals in his old life to recognize the first step. He forced his breathing into something slow and steady and turned toward the mirror.
The mirror was on the inside of his closet door, held in place with tape that had yellowed at the edges. Cheap and practical. The kind of thing you didn't question because it had always been there.
He crossed the room and stopped in front of it.
Fifteen.
The face staring back at him wasn't younger in a vague way. It was precise. Fifteen and a half, exactly as he remembered. Thick eyebrows. Slightly uneven hair that never sat the way he wanted. A narrow jaw that would sharpen later. Eyes that were his eyes, but clearer, less tired, like they hadn't spent years learning how disappointment could become routine.
He lifted one hand.
The boy in the mirror lifted his hand.
He lowered it, then leaned closer, examining details he didn't even know he'd missed. No lines at the corners of the eyes. No small scar near the knuckle. No calluses.
He swallowed.
"Okay," he said, voice quiet.
The sound of his own voice startled him more than the mirror had. It was higher. Lighter. Not weak, just… unfinished.
He stared at himself for another long moment, then stepped back.
He didn't need to test the world beyond this room to know what had happened. Seeing his own face was enough. This wasn't something he could rationalize into a dream. It was too ordinary. Too complete.
He turned away from the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed again, elbows resting on his knees. The ceiling fan rattled overhead like it wanted credit for confirming reality.
Fifteen years old.
The year 2000.
The thought landed cleanly. No emotional conflict, no guilt, no instant regret. If anything, it felt like someone had handed him a tool and told him he could either use it or waste it. There was no point in being dramatic about it.
He stood again and moved to the desk.
The computer tower sat under it, beige and bulky. He pressed the power button without hesitating, because he didn't have time for superstition. The machine hummed, and the monitor blinked to life.
And then he paused.
The loading screen was unfamiliar. Sleeker than it should have been. Too smooth. Too fast. The interface that appeared after it settled into place was modern, crisp, the kind of thing that didn't belong in the year 2000.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
He leaned in, eyes scanning the desktop.
There were icons that made no sense in this era. A browser shortcut labeled with a name he recognized from years later. A video platform. A music platform. Social media shortcuts—more than one. A network icon that suggested broadband, not dial-up. Everything looked like the world had skipped ahead on the tech timeline without telling him.
He didn't assume it was fake. He didn't assume it was a miracle. He assumed, calmly, that the world was different in ways he hadn't seen yet.
He opened the browser.
It launched instantly.
He typed the title of a song he knew by heart. A hit from his old life, one that had been everywhere. He hit enter.
Results appeared.
Forum posts. Random mentions. A couple of people guessing at lyrics that didn't exist. Nothing official. No streaming link. No artist page listing it. No sheet music.
He refined the search. Added the artist's name.
The artist existed. The bio existed. The early work existed.
But that song wasn't there.
He stared at the screen. His chest loosened in a way he hadn't expected.
So it wasn't just him.
He searched another song. Then another.
Same result.
Artists existed. Careers existed. The cultural shape of music still existed. But the defining songs from 2000 onward—the ones he'd grown up with, the ones that had become background to whole parts of his life—weren't here.
He leaned back in the chair. It squeaked.
He didn't feel angry. He didn't feel cheated. He felt something like a door opening.
If the songs didn't exist here, then they were not something he was "copying" from this world.
They were genuinely new.
He thought about what that meant.
He thought about how people had built careers off a single song that hit at the right moment. He thought about how music travelled—how it moved through radios, through cars, through dorm rooms, through heartbreak and road trips and boredom. He thought about how one good song could change what people wanted to hear next.
He glanced toward the mirror again, like it might answer a question without being asked.
Fifteen. In his old room. In a slightly different world.
He turned back to the computer and opened a blank document.
He didn't write a speech to himself. He didn't write a vow. He wrote a list.
money
equipment
skill
consistency
platform
strategy
He stared at the list, then added the last item.
music
He sat back and listened to the house.
Downstairs, a cabinet closed. Water ran. Footsteps. His mother moving through her morning routine. He could smell the house—laundry soap, old wood, whatever had been cooked last night—trapped in carpet and drywall.
This was still his life.
It hadn't turned into a fantasy world.
Which meant if he wanted to do something big, he'd have to do it the same way people always did.
Work.
He stood and walked to the closet. The clothes inside hung on mismatched plastic hangers. A hoodie he remembered liking. Jeans he remembered hating. Shoes lined up like they were waiting for a day to start.
School. Practice. Homework.
A normal teenage schedule waiting to claim him.
That was fine. He could build inside it.
He looked at his reflection one more time and exhaled.
"All right," he said quietly, like he was settling into a decision. "Let's start."