Zane did not remember falling asleep.
One moment he had been sitting on the edge of his bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes, his shoes half undone, his phone clamped tightly in his hand as if it were the only object keeping him anchored to the world. The next moment pale morning light burst through the blinds and spilled across the floorboards in hard, unforgiving stripes. His neck burned with a sharp ache from the angle he had collapsed into during the night, a tight line of pain running from the base of his skull down into his shoulder. When he straightened, his spine protested immediately, stiff and rigid from hours spent folded forward under the weight of exhaustion and tension.
He blinked slowly, trying to orient himself, but the room felt unfamiliar in that strange way spaces do after a night without real sleep. For several seconds his mind drifted in a fogged haze, unable to catch hold of a single clear thought.
