"Mummy, mummy, please stop crying."
A small trembling voice.
That was the first thing Feng Liang heard. Before the light. Before the pain. Before the smell sitting thick in the air around him like something that had been rotting there for days.
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling was wrong.
He lay still for a moment staring at it. Cracked plaster. A water stain spreading from one corner like something that had been ignored for a long time. He had gone to sleep in his penthouse. He knew every inch of that ceiling. This was not it.
He tried to sit up.
His body resisted. Heavy and sluggish, the kind of weight that didn't come from sleep. His head screamed the moment he moved, a deep dull pressure behind his eyes that had clearly been there long before he woke up. His mouth tasted like something had died in it. His throat felt raw and thick.
He forced himself upright anyway.
The room came into focus slowly.
Trash across every surface. Bottles on the floor. A wardrobe pushed against the wall with a broken handle hanging loose. A window with no curtains open to the flat grey morning. The kind of room that hadn't been cleaned in months by someone who had stopped seeing the mess a long time ago.
*Where am I.*
He turned his head.
Two figures stood across the room. A young woman and a small girl at her side, the girl's hand wrapped around her mother's. Both of them completely still. Both of them looking at him with the kind of stillness that doesn't come from calm — it comes from practice. From learning very quickly that stillness is safer than movement.
He opened his mouth.
They flinched. Same motion. Same instant. Before he had even made a sound.
He stared at them.
*Why are they afraid of me.*
He didn't understand it. He had never in his life walked into a room and had people flinch away from him like that. Board members had stood straighter when he entered. Assistants had moved faster. Nobody flinched. Nobody pressed themselves back against a wall and waited.
The little girl hadn't made a sound. Not one. Just buried herself against her mother's side and gone completely silent and still.
His head was pounding. The room felt unstable. Nothing around him made any sense and the harder he tried to reach for an explanation the further away it got.
*Think.* He pressed the heel of his hand against his temple. *Last night. What happened last night.*
The wine. The glass placed in front of him. The familiar face on the other side of the table.
And then nothing.
He pushed himself to his feet. His stomach lurched immediately, a rolling sick feeling climbing into his chest. He stood there for a moment, getting his balance, the room tilting slightly around him.
The woman across the room made a small sound. Not quite a word.
He looked at her.
She was pointing. Toward a door on the far side of the room. Her hand was trembling.
He crossed the room without speaking, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Small bathroom. Cracked tiles. A tap that dripped once when he turned it on before the water came through properly. He cupped it in both hands and brought it hard across his face. Cold and sharp. He rinsed his mouth. Spat. Gripped the edge of the basin and stood there breathing.
Then he looked up.
A stranger looked back at him from the mirror.
Young. Hollow cheeked. Dark circles sitting deep under his eyes. The kind of face that might have been handsome once before something had moved into it and never left.
He raised his hand slowly.
The stranger raised his hand.
Feng Liang pressed his fingers against his cheek. The reflection pressed back.
He stood there staring at a face he had never seen before in his life.
*What is happening to me.*