October 17, 2025 – Newark, New Jersey
The rain drummed steady against the windshield, blurring the streetlights into smears of gold. Marcus Hall hunched forward in the driver's seat, squinting through the downpour as his rusted Hyundai crept along Route 21. The wipers squealed across the glass like they were just as tired of the fight as he was.
He was thirty-seven. Broke. Alone. Working two jobs just to stay afloat—and still losing ground.
An envelope sat on the passenger seat beside him, unopened. He didn't need to. The red ink screaming "FINAL NOTICE" through the cheap paper told him everything. Another unpaid debt. Another reminder that the world had chewed him up and spit him out.
His mother's face, smiling from a faded photo clipped to the rearview mirror, watched him silently. Breast cancer had taken her fourteen years ago. She died in agony while he, a broke college student, watched helplessly. The bills outlived her: $163,447.12, to be exact. Chemotherapy, surgery, hospice care. No insurance. The hospital wanted every dime.
Marcus dropped out the year she died and never recovered. His twenties bled into his thirties under the hum of fluorescent lights—warehouses, grocery stockrooms, graveyard shifts at gas stations, fast food joints, and a stint cleaning classrooms at the very high school he once dreamed of escaping.
Now, all he had was debt, exhaustion, and a car with no rear defrost.
His phone buzzed. Another rejection. He didn't bother checking. He'd applied to three dozen jobs in the last month. Nothing. No one wanted a tired man with no degree, no savings, and a resume that screamed desperation.
"I'm done," he whispered to the empty car.
The light turned green. Marcus pressed the gas.
The semi-truck came out of nowhere—blinding lights, a monstrous horn, tires screaming on wet asphalt. He barely had time to gasp. Metal screamed. Glass shattered.
And then… silence.
No pain. No sound. Just blackness.
June 5, 2006 – Teaneck, New Jersey
He woke up gasping.
His heart thundered in his chest as sunlight poured in through slatted blinds. It was too bright. Too warm. Too…familiar?
He sat up, confusion crashing into him like a wave. This wasn't the rundown apartment in Newark. The air didn't reek of mildew and stale fast food. The bed was soft, springy. He looked down at himself. His hands. His arms.
Smooth. Young.
He stumbled out of bed and rushed to the mirror hanging on the closet door. What stared back made his breath catch in his throat.
It was him.
But eighteen.
Gone were the wrinkles etched by worry, the tired eyes, the greying stubble. His skin was fresh, tight, unscarred. His face was the one from high school—before life broke him.
"No way," he muttered.
Posters of Outkast and Allen Iverson lined the walls. Burned CDs in a spindle tower. A Nokia phone charging next to a Dell desktop tower humming with life. AIM notifications blinked in the corner of the CRT monitor.
"No… no, no, no, this can't be."
He fumbled for his wallet—an old leather trifold. Inside: high school ID. Driver's permit. Issue date: 2005.
"Holy shit."
His knees gave out. He hit the bed and sat there for a long moment, heart hammering in his chest.
Then he heard it.
A soft humming from the kitchen. Mary J. Blige. "Be Without You." His breath caught.
He sprinted out of the room, down the creaky hallway, past the shelf where his mother kept her cookbooks.
And there she was.
Alive.
Standing at the stove in her faded Rutgers sweatshirt, humming softly as she stirred something in a pot. The soft clink of a wooden spoon. The smell of onions and collard greens.
Marcus froze in the doorway. Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them.
She turned and smiled. "Well, look who's finally up. You sleep like the dead on Saturdays, boy."
He staggered forward, barely able to stand. "Mom?"
Her smile faltered. "Baby? You alright?"
He collapsed into her arms before she could react. "Oh God. Oh my God. You're alive."
"Marcus, what in the world—?" She wrapped her arms around him tightly, instinctively. "You're shaking. What's wrong?"
He buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed. Deep, ragged, uncontrollable. His body heaved like a dam had burst inside him.
She held him, rubbing his back the way she used to when he was a kid waking up from nightmares. "Shhh. I got you. You're safe."
For the first time in fourteen years, Marcus believed that might actually be true.
Later That Morning
He sat at the kitchen table, clutching a hot mug of coffee while his mother moved around the kitchen like a memory made real. She didn't press him—just gave him that knowing look mothers always had when their children were holding something big behind their eyes.
He was eighteen again. It was June 2006.
Everything he had lost… was in front of him again.
And everything he now knew—about the world, the economy, the future—burned in his mind like wildfire.
iPhones. Facebook. Bitcoin. Amazon. Netflix. Barack Obama. The housing crash. COVID. The war in Ukraine. AI.
He had knowledge that could change everything.
But right now, all he wanted was one more morning in this kitchen with her.
"I think I had a dream," he finally said, voice soft.
She turned to him with a gentle smile. "Well, sometimes dreams are just God's way of waking us up."
He didn't answer.
Because for the first time in years, Marcus Hall was wide awake.
And the second chance he never expected… was only just beginning.