The tray rattled quietly in Jen’s hands as she walked the pristine hall. A ceramic cup of tea, two sugar cubes balanced on the saucer’s rim. A small bowl of rice porridge, still steaming.

  It felt too light. Too easy. But it was what he’d asked for yesterday—if muttering “Whatever, I guess” even counted as asking.

  The hallway was silent. The whole house usually was.

  You could hear the hush in a place like this.

  Too big. Too polished. Too lonely.

  The smart home lights brightened as she neared her son’s private wing. His master suite sat at the far end like a sealed-off vault. The windows were blacked out, the AI-controlled curtains locked in sleep mode for most of the day. It was like time didn’t move in there. Like it wasn’t allowed to.

  She stopped at his door and let the smartlock scan her face. It clicked softly. With a mechanical swish she’d never quite gotten used to, the door opened and granted her entry.

  “Josh?” she called softly, just in case he was still asleep.

  She stepped inside.

  He wasn’t in bed.

  It took her eyes a moment to adjust. The lights were dim, bathing the room in an artificial pre-dawn glow. The air was heavy—humid with the stale scent of sweat, unwashed clothes, and something else she couldn’t name. Something like grief, left out too long.

  And then she saw him.

  Josh was on the floor.

  Back against the wall. Legs limp in front of him, useless. His fists were clenched. His shoulders trembled. And he was hitting his legs—softly, rhythmically. Not hard enough to injure, but enough to feel.

  Enough to make it real.

  Like he was trying to wake them. Or punish them.

  Or both.

  “Josh—”

  Her voice cracked.

  The tray slipped.

  The crash of ceramic and silverware striking marble echoed like a gunshot. Tea splattered across the white tile. The bowl shattered. The spoon spun in a tight circle before coming to rest.

  Josh flinched. His head jerked toward her, eyes wide—guilty, ashamed.

  Tears were already streaming down his cheeks. Not frantic. Just… falling. Quietly. Like they had nowhere else to go.

  “Mom,” he whispered. His voice broke like the bowl had.

  Jen was already moving. She dropped to her knees beside him and wrapped her arms around his shaking body.

  He didn’t resist. He just collapsed into her, head pressed against her shoulder like he had when he was a boy with scraped knees. She cradled him, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other holding him tight against her chest.

  He smelled like salt. Sweat. A whole week of not trying.

  “I’m here,” she whispered into his hair. “You’re okay.”

  It wasn’t true.

  But it was all she had.

  They stayed like that until the tension drained from his shoulders and his breathing settled. Then she helped him up, slow and careful, guiding him back to bed. She adjusted the weighted blanket over his legs—not for warmth, but for grounding. For comfort.

  She sat beside him and brushed the hair from his face. He looked older when he was in pain. Twenty-nine, but some days he felt like forty. And other days, like the eighteen-year-old who’d once told her in tears that he didn’t want to die, he just didn’t know how to live like this.

  “I should’ve turned on Do Not Disturb mode,” he muttered, eyes closed.

  “I would’ve overridden it,” she said, softly but firm. “You know I would. I always will, if I think you need me.”

  Josh let out a tired, watery laugh. “As bad as it gets, Mom... I’d never do that to you. I’d never leave you like that.”

  The heaviness lingered in the air. But it mattered—what he said. She needed to hear it. And he needed to say it. Still, it hurt her that she was the only reason he hadn’t. That his existence had boiled down to not breaking her.

  After a long pause, Jen spoke again.

  “I talked to Red Fang’s board.”

  His eyes didn’t open, but his expression shifted—tightened.

  “They’re willing to lift the ban,” she said. “You could go back to Thirian.”

  Silence.

  “But?”

  “I have to sign over Green Dawn. And… you’d have to delete your account. Start from scratch. Skills, progress, everything.”

  His eyes opened. There was a flicker of something—hope, maybe—before she added:

  “They want it all. My storefronts. My alchemy recipes. My merchant network. Everything I built.” She exhaled. “And I’m going to give it to them.”

  Josh sat up slightly. “You can’t. You’re the most successful player-merchant in the game. You generate more gold than entire mid-tier guilds. You’re practically an institution.”

  “I didn’t build Green Dawn to be powerful,” she said. “I built it because you loved that world. I just wanted to be a part of something that gave you joy.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Josh turned his face away. His jaw tensed. “I messed it all up.”

  “You were eighteen,” she said softly. “They knew exactly what they were doing. They made you feel important. Needed. Then they used you.”

  “I let them use me to get to you.”

  She didn’t argue. It wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t the truth that mattered.

  “I never cared about the empire,” she said. “I just cared about being there with you. So if this is the price, then it’s worth it.”

  He stared at the ceiling, the weight of shame thick in his chest.

  “I don’t deserve another chance.”

  Jen reached for his hand.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “You’re still my first choice. Always.”

  Josh let out a short, broken laugh. “If I could go back and tell the old me that questing with my mom wasn’t lame…”

  “Don’t look back,” she said. “You can still do that.”

  He turned his head toward her. “You’re really ready to walk away from everything? The millions, the fame?”

  “I never stayed in Thirian for the empire,” she said. “I stayed because it gave me a piece of you I thought I’d lost. Seeing you walk. Run. Laugh. All this success? It was a side effect. If you’re not there—then none of it means anything.”

  He looked at her. Really looked.

  She was still in her pajama pants. Hair a little messy. Dark circles under her eyes. She didn’t look like a legend. She looked like a mom.

  “Okay,” he said. “This time… I’ll follow you.”

  Jen smiled. “Good. And don’t worry—we’re still filthy rich. Call it my retirement. We’ll sell the extra properties, cancel the yacht subscription, whatever. Plus, Mom can still power-level you.”

  Josh laughed for real that time—warm, genuine. The sound of it filled her chest like light.

  And when she opened her eyes—

  An alarm clock was buzzing. Loud, harsh, and jarringly real.

  She groaned, flinging one arm toward the sound. Her hand smacked plastic, silencing it with a familiar thunk. She froze.

  That alarm. She hadn’t heard it in eight, maybe nine years.

  She blinked into darkness, disoriented.

  The room was too dim. No gentle sunrise simulation easing her into wakefulness. No birdsong or rustling AI-generated breeze. No lavender mist from the auto-diffuser. Her mansion—her sanctuary—always woke her like a whisper.

  This was not that.

  She sat up slowly. The sheets rustled around her legs.

  The mattress sagged differently beneath her. The air smelled faintly of dust and detergent… and something else. Something like childhood. Familiar.

  She blinked again. Her vision adjusted.

  The room was smaller. Cramped. Lived-in.

  A low bookshelf cluttered with paperbacks. A chipped vanity mirror leaning against a desk. A ceiling fan creaking above her in slow, uneven turns.

  Her old bedroom. The one she’d sold over a decade ago.

  Jen pushed back the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees felt strange—looser, lighter. Like a weight had been lifted from them.

  The carpet was thin. Worn. A scratchy patch by the dresser still tickled the soles of her feet exactly the way it used to. She turned in a slow circle, heart pounding. There was her old dresser. The faded curtains. The curtain rod she’d bent once while trying to kill a spider with a broom.

  The red digits of the digital clock blinked at her: 7:12 a.m.

  Her hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob. It clicked open with a sound that hadn’t touched her ears in years.

  The hallway outside was narrow and dim, lined with crooked family photos.

  She moved slowly, like she was walking through a memory.

  Then she saw it—the photo.

  A family portrait. Unfaded, unbroken. The four of them.

  Jen, younger by years, with raven-black hair pulled into a loose braid, her sharp green eyes smiling.

  Josh, grinning in his high school soccer jersey, black hair messy, those same brilliant green eyes bright and alive.

  Willow, in the middle. Brown hair sun-lightened and escaping her ponytail. The same green eyes as her mother and brother. Freckles dusted her nose. Her smile was tilted—mischievous, radiant.

  And beside them, Peter—her ex-husband. Brown hair. Blue eyes. That easy, confident smile.

  Jen reached out, fingers trembling, and traced Willow’s face. Her throat tightened.

  Thirteen years.

  Thirteen years since Peter had taken that yellow light too fast. Since the crash. Since Willow never came home. Since Josh’s spine had shattered.

  Therapy had dulled it, but this house... this photo... it all brought the grief back raw and full-blooded.

  Her knees buckled slightly. She leaned into the wall, forehead pressed to the glass.

  Why am I here?

  A voice broke through the fog.

  “Mom!”

  She froze.

  Josh’s voice.

  But not the man’s voice. Not the tired, thirty-year-old version she’d left in a wheelchair the night before. This was younger. Higher. Before the bitterness. Before the walls.

  Her heart seized.

  If Josh was young—could it mean…?

  She turned and ran.

  She didn’t stop at Willow’s door. Her fingers hit the knob. She flung it open—and stopped cold.

  The room was still.

  No music. No headphones. No girl slouched on the bed, legs dangling over the edge.

  Instead, it was a memorial.

  Dust lay thick on the shelves. Books sat untouched, their spines lined with glitter and stickers. Her ballet shoes still hung on the closet door like ghosts. A faded plush unicorn lay on the pillow.

  In the corner: a small table crowded with keepsakes. Cards from classmates. Notes scrawled in young handwriting—“We miss you, Willow.”

  Stuffed animals in too-bright colors. A photograph in a silver frame.

  Jen’s breath hitched. The pain stabbed through her like a hot blade.

  She dropped to her knees. The sobs came before she could stop them.

  She wasn’t back far enough.

  Time had bent—but not for Willow.

  The cruel twist of it crashed into her. Her fingers curled against the edge of the desk as she wept, as if holding on could anchor her in the moment. As if the desk, the carpet, the dust could keep her from drowning.

  Why did I think she’d be here?

  Why did I hope?

  Another voice called from down the hall.

  “Mom!”

  Josh again.

  Her tears smeared hastily across her cheeks as she stood. She wiped her face with her sleeve, took a shaky breath, and walked quickly back down the hall.

  His door was ajar. She pushed it open.

  Josh was on the floor. Sixteen again. Red-faced and frustrated, arms braced beside a toppled wheelchair.

  “Fuck!” he barked. “Stupid chair—!”

  Jen didn’t think. She dropped to her knees beside him and helped lift him, bracing his weight with practiced hands. Her body remembered before her mind could catch up—how to tilt his shoulder, where to place her hand beneath his arm, how to shift her hips for balance.

  Once seated, he looked up at her, startled.

  “...You’re crying,” he said quietly.

  His voice wasn’t bitter. Not yet. Just confused. Cautious.

  She stared at him, and the world narrowed.

  His cheeks were flushed. His brow was furrowed—but only from effort, not pain. No scars yet. No walls. He was whole, if still wounded. Not yet turned inward. Not yet lost.

  Her boy.

  Jen let out a choked laugh and kissed his cheek. Then she pulled him into a hug, one hand gripping the back of his head like she could anchor herself there forever.

  He blinked, awkward. “Mom? It’s not a big deal. I fall out all the time. Seriously. Chill.”

  She pulled back, cupped his face. “You’re perfect,” she whispered.

  He looked vaguely horrified. “Okay, now I’m worried.”

  She smiled through tears and moved behind his chair, gently beginning to wheel him toward the hallway.

  “You getting me ready for school or something?” he muttered. “You’re acting weird.”

  She breathed in his voice. His presence. Every moment.

  “Don’t worry about Mom,” she said. “She’s just… having a strange morning.”

  Her heart pounded. Her thoughts spun.

  Was this a dream? A miracle? A punishment?

  It didn’t matter.

  Because this time—she had a second chance.

  And she wasn’t going to waste it.