"Huff!"
I jolted upright, clenching my chest, gasping for air like I'd just drowned. Slick with sweat, my shirt clinging to me as if I'd been running in a fever.
My nostrils burned from the stench—a sour, musty smell of sweat mixed with rotten snacks.
I blinked my eyes open.
The room was dark, except for a flickering light-blue glow cast from a TV screen in front of me. A character was paused mid-jump on a rooftop in some old action game. I looked down, and the controller on my lap was still vibrating.
I looked around.
Piles of rolled-up papers lay crumpled across the floor, some stained with ketchup, others scrawled with notes that I couldn't even read from here.
"Am I…"
I stumbled out of the mattress that was barely called a bed, stepping on a plastic wrapper as I made my way to the long mirror standing at the corner of the room.
I stood in front of it.
