Chapter 155: The First Life.
Trevor stared at the screen, at the brittle, meticulous lines of Lucas’ memory, as if they would suddenly undo themselves and vanish before he could finish reading. But they didn’t. They waited. Heavy. Patient. Measured like confession, shaped like sorrow.
There was no date or number on the files; only the last modified icon provided him with a sense of order, and he chose to begin with the oldest.
The file opened with brutal simplicity: no title, no Chapter, just a block of clean text waiting like an open wound with blood between the lines.
’How can I describe what happened in my previous life? I don’t know where to begin, other than the day I died.’
Trevor’s breathing slowed while he read. The words weren’t dramatic, but they were laced with the uncertainty of a man who couldn’t believe he had another chance.
’It was summer. One of those burning weeks where the walls sweat and the air goes stale before noon. They turned on the floor heating; I can still feel the hot marble on my skin. I despised hot weather, and I still do. Christian knew this.’
Trevor couldn’t even blink. The words crawled under his skin, slow and relentless.
They turned on the floor heating.
Something in his chest twists. Not violently, but with the quiet sharpness of a blade placed perfectly.
Lucas’s voice in the file was plain, factual, and disarmingly restrained, like a dam holding back a thousand unspoken words. Rage. Pain. Loneliness so complete it became part of the air.