Wil returned home, stepping quietly into the apartment flat. The evening air was heavy with the scent of rain from an earlier storm, and the soft hum of the refrigerator was the only sound in the otherwise still apartment. He glanced around, his mind still racing from the meeting with Dr. Mac.
As he closed the door behind him, his mother, Scarlet, wheeled herself into the living room. Her leg was still in a cast, and she looked up with concern the moment she saw him. "You're back earlier than I expected," she said, her voice soft but probing. "How did the meeting go?"
Wil didn't meet her eyes. His thoughts were too jumbled, too intense, to explain everything right now. The revelation from Dr. Mac, the USB stick she'd handed him, and the strange connection between his time traveling and the game—it was all too much. He needed space to think, to process.
