# Chapter 2: Ground Zero
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Michael pulled into a McDonald's parking lot about twenty minutes later, his stomach growling in protest. The restaurant sat on a busy intersection, its golden arches catching the morning sun like a beacon for the desperate and hungry.
He killed the engine and sat there for a moment, hands still gripping the wheel.
*Okay. First things first. I need money. I need a place to stay. I need to not be homeless.*
The grand plans could wait. Before he could create the next twenty years of entertainment, he needed to survive the next twenty-four hours.
He pulled out the brick phone and scrolled through the contacts until he found it: **Jake Martinez**.
Jake. They'd gone to high school together, played in the same terrible garage band for about six months junior year. Jake had moved to LA right after graduation, been working at McDonald's in the Valley for the past few months while trying to break into... what was it? Audio engineering? Music production? Michael's eighteen-year-old memories were fuzzy on the details, but his thirty-eight-year-old brain filled in the gaps.
They'd talked about this. Just a week ago—*in this timeline*—Jake had mentioned they were hiring. "It's shit work, man, but it's money," he'd said. "You ever need a job, I can put in a word."
Michael had laughed it off then. He'd been planning to go to community college, maybe study film or music. Dad had been alive, and the future had seemed... if not bright, then at least possible.
Now?
Now he needed that shit work.
He dialed the number.
"Yo," Jake answered on the third ring, sounding half-asleep.
"Jake, it's Michael. Michael Carter."
A pause. "Dude. Shit, man, I heard about your dad. I'm so sorry, I wanted to come to the funeral but I had to work a double and—"
"It's okay," Michael cut him off, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. "Really. But listen, you remember how you said your McDonald's was hiring?"
Another pause, this one more alert. "Yeah, man. You need a job?"
"Desperately."
"Okay. Okay, yeah, I can talk to my manager. When can you start?"
Michael looked at the building, at the early lunch crowd starting to trickle in. "Today?"
Jake laughed, but it wasn't unkind. "You're serious."
"Dead serious."
"Alright. Come in around two, ask for Ray. Raymond Foster, he's the hiring manager. I'll text you the address. Tell him I sent you. Wear something clean, try not to look too hungover, and you're golden. It's not rocket science, man. If you can count change and not spit in the food, you're hired."
"Thanks, Jake. Really."
"No problem. We can catch up after your shift, yeah? You doing okay? Where you staying?"
Michael glanced at his backseat full of garbage bags. "I'm figuring that out."
Another pause. "Shit, man. You need a place to crash? My couch is open for a few nights if—"
"I appreciate it, but I'll be fine. I'll see you at two."
He hung up before Jake could argue. Pride was a stupid thing to cling to when you were sleeping in your car, but Michael had spent twenty years watching his dreams slowly die in his original timeline. This time, he was doing it differently.
This time, he was doing it alone.
---
The address came through a minute later, and Michael plugged it into his mental map of the Valley. Not far. Good.
But first: he needed to clean up. He smelled like old car and sadness, and you couldn't start a new life smelling like defeat.
He drove until he spotted what he was looking for: a run-down motel off Ventura Boulevard, the kind with a flickering vacancy sign and hourly rates advertised in peeling paint. The "Starlight Motor Inn" looked like it hadn't seen actual starlight since 1973.
Perfect.
The office was a cramped box behind bulletproof glass, staffed by a woman who looked like she'd stopped being surprised by anything sometime during the Reagan administration. Her name tag said "Dolores."
"Help you?" she asked without looking up from her magazine.
"I need a room. Just for today. Few hours."
Now she looked up, her eyes taking in his rumpled clothes and young face with the practiced assessment of someone who'd seen it all. "ID."
Michael slid his license through the gap in the glass.
She studied it, then him. "You eighteen?"
"As of six months ago."
"Sixty dollars. Cash. Check-out's at two PM."
Michael pulled out his wallet and counted out the bills. Forty-three dollars left. His stomach growled again.
Dolores slid him a key attached to a plastic diamond keychain. "Room 12. Around the side. You break anything, you pay for it. No smoking. No guests. No funny business."
"Yes ma'am."
She was already back to her magazine.
---
Room 12 smelled like disinfectant and old cigarettes despite the no-smoking policy, but it had a bed, a TV bolted to the dresser, and most importantly, a bathroom that looked reasonably clean.
Michael locked the door behind him and stood there for a moment, taking it in. The brown carpet with mystery stains. The painting of a desert sunset that had probably been purchased in bulk. The air conditioning unit that rattled like it had tuberculosis.
It was the most beautiful room he'd ever seen.
He dropped his backpack—one of the few things he'd grabbed from the house—on the bed and headed straight for the bathroom. The shower was tiny, the water pressure was barely a trickle, and the temperature control seemed to operate on a binary system of "arctic" or "surface of the sun."
He didn't care.
Michael stood under the lukewarm spray for twenty minutes, watching the grime and grief and impossibility of the last few days swirl down the drain. When he finally stepped out, he felt almost human again.
He wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at himself for the first time in... however long it had been since the transmigration. Since the universe decided to hit the reset button on his life.
The face looking back stopped him cold.
He'd forgotten.
At thirty-eight, Michael had been decent-looking in that average, forgettable way that worked fine for piano bars but never got you cast in anything meaningful. He'd kept himself in reasonable shape, but age and disappointment had settled into his features like dust on old furniture.
This face was different.
Eighteen-year-old Michael Carter had good bone structure—high cheekbones, a strong jawline that would only get better with age. His hair was dark brown, thick and styled in that early-2000s way that would look dated in a few years but worked for now. He was lean, not quite six-pack territory but athletic enough. The kind of body that could bulk up with the right training.
But the eyes.
Blue eyes.
That was the rare trait, the genetic lottery that set him apart. Not the pale, washed-out blue, but a deeper shade, almost sapphire. Striking against his darker hair and fair complexion. The kind of eyes that drew attention, that cameras loved.
Hollywood eyes.
In his original timeline, those eyes had gotten him exactly nowhere. They'd gotten him compliments at auditions and piano bars, sure. "You've got a great look," casting directors would say, right before hiring someone else.
But this time...
This time he had something those casting directors had never seen. He had the talent, yes—twenty years of honing his craft. But more than that, he had the *material*. The songs that would make people stop and listen. The scripts that would make producers scramble for their checkbooks.
Michael ran a hand through his damp hair, studying the face in the mirror like it belonged to a stranger.
"Okay," he said to his reflection. "This is what we're working with."
The body would need work. He was average now—not fat, not thin, just... unremarkable. But he remembered the training regimens, the diets, the way actors transformed themselves for roles. He'd seen it up close in his original timeline, worked with enough fitness trainers and nutritionists during brief stints as an extra on bigger productions.
He could do that. He would do that.
But first: food.
His stomach growled again, louder this time, like it was personally offended by his reflection-gazing when there were calories to be consumed.
Michael got dressed in the cleanest clothes he could find—jeans that were only slightly wrinkled and a black t-shirt that didn't smell too bad. He checked his phone. 11:47 AM. He had two hours before the McDonald's interview.
Time enough for a proper meal.
---
He found a diner three blocks away, the kind of place that probably hadn't updated its menu since the '80s. "Mel's Diner" in faded chrome letters, vinyl booths, a counter with spinning stools.
Perfect.
A waitress who looked about retirement age approached with a coffee pot. "Sit anywhere, hon."
Michael slid into a booth by the window where he could see his car. Everything he owned was in that car.
"Coffee?"
"Please." He definitely needed coffee. "And can I get the breakfast? Eggs scrambled, bacon, hash browns, toast."
"You got it, sweetie."
She poured the coffee—black, bitter, exactly what he needed—and disappeared toward the kitchen.
Michael wrapped his hands around the mug and stared out the window at the Valley stretching out in the October sunlight. Somewhere out there, YouTube was in its infancy, a startup that most people thought would fail. Facebook was still limited to college kids. The iPhone was two years away. The MCU was three years away.
And he knew all of it.
Every song that would top the charts. Every movie that would break box office records. Every cultural shift, every trend, every moment.
The waitress returned with a plate piled high with food—eggs, bacon, hash browns, wheat toast, a side of fruit that looked like it came from a can.
"Anything else, hon?"
"This is perfect. Thank you."
Michael ate slowly, methodically, making every bite count. This was it—the last of his seventy dollars, minus the two-fifty he'd need for gas to get to the interview.
He was about to be completely broke.
But as he mopped up egg yolk with his toast, watching the city wake up outside the window, Michael felt something he hadn't felt in twenty years of his original timeline:
Hope.
Not the desperate, clinging hope of someone drowning. Real hope. Solid hope. The kind built on knowledge and skill and a second chance that most people never got.
He finished his coffee, left a small tip he couldn't afford because the waitress reminded him of Dad's sister, and walked out into the California sunshine.
Two hours until his interview at McDonald's.
After that, he'd start building his empire one minimum-wage hour at a time.
But first, he needed to survive.
And maybe—just maybe—get a notebook to start writing down everything in his head before he forgot a single word.
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**END CHAPTER 2**