He never woke up. And Daniel never came back, never called, never explained. He just vanished.

Now his daughter was standing on my doorstep.

“He passed away last month,” she said, her voice quiet. “Before he died, he told me everything. And he gave me this.” She held up a key—small, silver, ordinary.

“What is that?”“He said you deserve to know the truth. About why he left, about where he’s been, about what he’s been doing all these years.”