Forty-eight years old, and here he was. Still waiting.

The bedroom was familiar. Too familiar. Every shadow, every corner, every worn-out photo frame on the dresser. He knew this room better than he knew himself. Sometimes he wondered if that was the problem—if maybe he had gotten so comfortable with his own life that the universe had decided he didn't need anyone else in it.

He closed his eyes.

He dreamed of guitars. He dreamed of stages. He dreamed of the same songs he'd played a thousand times, the same crowds, the same lights.

And then—

The dream shifted.

He was standing in a record store. Not one he'd ever been to. Not one that existed anywhere in the world he knew. The air smelled like old paper and vinyl dust. Golden light poured through tall windows, catching motes of dust in slow, lazy spirals.

Shelves stretched high above him, crammed with albums he didn't recognize. Some covers were worn smooth, barely readable. Others gleamed like they'd never been touched.

He moved between the aisles, fingers hovering over spines. His own face looked back at him from a few of them—Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, albums he'd made with his own hands. But there were others. Things he'd never recorded. Songs he'd never written. It was like stepping into a memory that didn't belong to him.

And then he heard it.

The voice was raw, irritated, utterly unimpressed with whatever this place was. It wasn't familiar. He'd never heard it before in his life.

And yet—his heart was pounding.

slowly turns toward the sound ...Hello?