Nelson Cheng

A man haunted by regret is given the chance to become every version of himself he never got to be, if he can survive long enough to keep the life he chooses.

At sixty-four, Elliot has run out of reasons to believe things will get better.

Known around town as “Mr. Mattress,” Elliot has spent years selling beds at a local mattress store. But when the owner dies and a younger manager forces him into retirement, the life he spent decades building collapses. Estranged from his son, nearly broke, and haunted by dreams he never pursued, Elliot decides he’s done fighting.

Then a knock at the door changes everything.

As a retirement gift, his former boss delivers a mysterious mattress unlike any Elliot has ever seen. When he falls asleep on it, he awakens in the Mattress Factory, a strange, endless showroom where every mattress offers a doorway into a different version of his life.

In one world, Elliot has the career he always wanted. In another, he’s someone he barely recognizes. Each mattress gives him a chance to become the man he might have been.

But there’s a catch.

To keep any new life, Elliot must survive a single day inside it. But in every life he enters, someone is trying to kill him.

As Elliot races through a growing maze of alternate destinies, he becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind the Factory, the assassin hunting him across worlds, and the question that has haunted him for decades: Was he ever living the life he was meant to live?

Blending the imaginative and speculative with life-or-death suspense, The Mattress Factory is a deeply human novel about regret, second chances, and discovering what makes a life worth fighting for.