Timothy woke up to the sound of water running in another apartment.
Not loud. Not intrusive. Just the thin, steady hiss of pipes doing their job somewhere above him, carried faintly through the ceiling. It wasn't his alarm. It wasn't his phone. It wasn't anything that demanded attention.
He lay there for a moment longer than usual, eyes open, staring at the pale rectangle of morning light cast on the far wall. The city outside had already begun its daily coordination—traffic syncing, elevators cycling, systems handing off responsibility without ceremony.
He didn't move immediately.
That, too, was deliberate.
When he finally sat up, the apartment felt unchanged in the way places only did when they were designed to disappear. Neutral surfaces. Clean lines. No clutter pretending to be personality. The place held his life without narrating it back to him.
He stood, crossed the room barefoot, and opened the window an inch.
