She died three days later.
There were no final words worth remembering. No dramatic confession. No "live well" speech. She simply became quieter, smaller, as if the room was taking her away piece by piece.
On the last morning, she didn't recognise him.
That was what made it real, if anything did. A dream would've made him central. A dream would've given him meaning. This didn't.
This just happened.
After, the bed stayed made for half a day. Then someone stripped it, replaced sheets, wiped down surfaces with rough efficiency. A routine. A system.
He watched from a chair that was too big for him, feet not reaching the floor.
The man, same bored authority, signed papers without looking at Marcus's face. Another woman arrived with a clipboard and a tired smile. She crouched, tried to speak gently.
"Where's your father, sweetheart?"
Marcus's mind searched for an answer and found blankness.
"I don't know," he heard himself say. The voice was small, hoarse.
She nodded like she'd heard that answer a hundred times.
The orphanage took him because there was nowhere else.
That was the reason. Not mercy. Not kindness. Logistics.
The building smelled of boiled vegetables and bleach. Rows of beds. A courtyard that was mostly concrete. Staff who were either sharp-eyed or exhausted, sometimes both.
He learned quickly that you survived by understanding the rhythm.
Meals were at set times, but seconds depended on speed and luck. The strongest children sat on the inside. The quieter ones got bumped away from the trays. There were rules everyone pretended not to enforce, and those rules mattered more than the posted ones.
His body stayed sickly.
Fever came often. Coughs that lingered. Skin rashes. Doctors who shook their heads and wrote notes. Staff who tried remedies that made no difference. A nurse once called him delicate like it was an insult.
He was also heavy.
Not strong heavy. Soft. Like his body stored what little it had and refused to spend it. He got winded easily. He sweated at night. Sometimes he woke up already tired, as if sleep was something his body couldn't fully access.
At first, his adult mind fought this like it was a mistake.
I'm not like this. I train. I move. I'm an adult.
Then days stacked into weeks. Weeks into months.
His mind adapted the way minds do: by building a story that allowed survival.
I'm going to wake up. Any minute now. This is a long dream. A stress collapse. I'll come back and everything will be fine.
So he didn't attach.
He watched other children cry for their parents and felt nothing he recognised. He listened to friendships form and break and felt distant, as if he was observing a show.
It wasn't cruelty. It was caution.
Why build bonds in a dream?
Families came.
Couples with clean coats and clean shoes. People who held hands and spoke softly in corners. They toured like it was a market and the children were products arranged by age and health.
Marcus learned to stand still.
Those families looked at him last.
Sometimes they didn't look at all.
He noticed patterns even then. Which kids were chosen. Which were ignored. Which staff made introductions. Which staff avoided certain children because they didn't want to be asked why.
He learned to smile at the right moment. Learned to speak just enough to seem polite. Learned not to beg.
He was an only child in his past life. He'd always been okay alone. He'd made peace with being his own company.
That trait served him here too.
On bad nights, nights when his chest hurt from coughing, nights when hunger made his mind thin, he reminded himself of the desk. Of the emails. Of the real struggle.
Those rejections felt heavier than this. Even now.
Because in the real world, people depended on him.
Here, he told himself, nothing depended on him.
Not yet.