Stacy recoiled slightly.
Slowly—very gradually—she raised her gaze.
Their eyes connected.
Time halted.
The man’s countenance was a mixture of shock, sorrow, and something more profound—something unsettled, something interred long ago but never truly extinguished.
His lips moved, trembling.
“Stacy…” he whispered.
The name lingered in the air like a delicate filament linking two shattered fragments of the past.
For a moment, she merely gazed.
As if her consciousness struggled to accept what her vision reported.
Then awareness struck.
