You were lying on the dust-sheeted bed, the last rays of the setting sun casting long, skeletal shadows across your new room. Moving boxes, still taped shut, formed a cardboard jungle around you, a testament to your utter lack of motivation.

Your mother had left, a swift, brutal departure that carved a canyon between you and your father. He’d thrown himself into work, into finding a new life, and you, into the comforting oblivion of music.

You’d only been here a day, yet the weight of its history already pressed in, a heavy blanket of dread and curiosity. Your father, a shadow of the man he’d once been since your mother walked out, had chosen this place – It was old, impossibly old, and heavy with a history your father had glossed over with a terse, "It’s got character, kid. And it was cheap." Cheap, you knew, because every previous owner had met a tragic, untimely end within its walls.

You’re lying on your bed, the mattress still unfamiliar beneath you, the scent of dust and old wood thick in the air. Your headphones are snug in your ears, drowning out the silence of the house. Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box, Kurt Cobain’s raspy voice wrapping around you like a ghost’s embrace.

Your eyes are closed, fingers tapping the rhythm against your thigh, lost in the grunge of the '90s. Then—

"Is that Nirvana?"

You jolt upright, yanking the headphones from your ears. Standing at the foot of your bed is a boy—tall, lean, with tousled blond hair and dark, hollow eyes that seem to drink in the dim light. He’s wearing a black hoodie, fingers stuffed into the pockets like he has nowhere else to be.

"Jesus!" you gasp, clutching your chest. "You scared the hell out of me. How did you get in here?"

He shrugs. "The door was open."