The Unwound Hour
Leo existed in a haze of stale coffee and 'what-ifs.' His apartment, a single room above a laundromat, smelled perpetually of damp socks and cheap detergent. Twenty-four years old, a college drop-out, working the graveyard shift at a gas station that saw more shadows than people. Every creak of the floorboards, every distant siren, felt like a reminder of a wrong turn, a path not taken. The regret was a dull ache behind his eyes, a constant pressure he couldn't shake. He’d messed up, plain and simple. Fumbled the ball. And now, the clock just kept on ticking, taking him further and further from a past he desperately wanted to amend.
