Ayren woke up suddenly to a loud honking sound. A truck almost hit the door of his building.
As soon as he woke up, even before opening his eyes, he felt his body lighter, the weight he was used to in his body was no longer there.
He opened his eyes quickly, looking at the ceiling still completely moldy. Then he remembered yesterday, he stayed on the laptop until he couldn't take the sleep anymore and collapsed on the mattress.
He got up fast, hurrying his steps to the bathroom, and soon turned on the light, staring at his reflection in the broken mirror.
Then, the silence.
He looked at his face, the double chin and the swollen and rounded face were no longer there. His face was thin and almost defined.
His skin was still pale and sick-looking, along with dark circles, dirt stains, and who-knows-what else. But his appearance had changed, especially one thing. Ayren saw his eyes, previously empty, lifeless, and without any will.
Today there was a new shine in his amber eyes, even if tiny, that was enough. A new interest had emerged in him since yesterday.
"So, really, it's not a dream, is it?" Ayren said, not expecting an answer to anything, he always asked himself, even though...
Yesterday, he called for gods, demons, any entity, systems, anything he could imagine, he wanted an answer about what was happening, but all he got was silence.
And that only made his curiosity about all of this grow.
He then looked at the scale on the bathroom floor and stepped on it quickly.
"From 100 kg to 70 kg in one night. There's no way to ignore this. Maybe I should stay home for a while. Not that I go out much anyway, I doubt anyone still remembers me besides Seris."
He then touched his body, feeling everything was completely fine, decided to go back to the bedroom, and placed the laptop on his legs while sitting on the mattress.
His back leaning against the wall, which already had a large yellow stain, showed that it was quite usual for him to stay there.
"Yesterday, I tested three types of ads. First, the ones that promised easy money, and that was fulfilled." Ayren picked up his phone and went to check his account.
"After a while, I just kept clicking more and more and ended up forgetting to check how much I had earned."
Balance: $7,680.00
"That's enough money to live for a long time, right? I guess that's good for now." Ayren thought, even though he was happy with the money, that wasn't what he was concerned about at the moment.
What he wanted most was to know the limits, how it started, what was this new 'Power' of his? If he could even call it that.
"The second type of ad I tested was various workouts and exercises that promised to make you lose weight easily. And after doing them all, this is how my body turned out, the fat just bizarrely melted away."
"And lastly, the ads that promised extreme results with some products, like creams, medicines, etc. But I'll only know if those work when they're delivered in a few days…" Ayren mused, laying his thoughts out clearly.
At that moment, the laptop turned on again. He looked at the photo of the girl for a moment before entering the password. Without thinking much, he quickly opened the browser. Then he thought of something.
In the next ten minutes, he researched strange ads, becoming reality, weird things happening around the world or anything that connected to what was happening to him. But without success.
The world was completely normal, nothing had changed.
"I tested just a few things, there must be a lot more ads that promise unreal stuff. Is there a limit?" Ayren was anxious.
He started entering any shady website or blog, where the ads were even less regulated.
He skipped the ones that promised money, for now, that wasn't what he was looking for and, after a few minutes of searching, finally something different appeared.
"Are there really people who click this?" He said, frowning slightly.
On the site he was on, two ads, one next to the other, appeared.
[Grow up to 10 cm even after turning 18! Specialists hide this trick. Click HERE to learn more!]
[Eagle Vision!! Get perfect eyesight in minutes with these eye exercises. HURRY! Time is LIMITED.]
Ayren, without thinking twice, opened the second ad in a new window and clicked the first one.
Obviously, it was another completely shady website. The trick in question was to hang on a bar and how that would benefit you. It was actually correct in some things, but grow 10 cm from that?
"I have to test it, don't I? If I remember correctly, I'm 1.75 cm tall. Let's go." Ayren got up and looked for somewhere in the house where he could do it. He didn't find any but remembered something.
"In the staircase… I think I can use the handrail of that part of the stairs to hang from. It said five minutes, right? I think I can manage now." Ayren said, leaving his home and looking around, there was no one around at the moment, in fact, he hadn't seen anyone besides Seris there in several months.
Without thinking much, he jumped on the top handrail, and soon five minutes passed in his mind. But nothing happened.
"Could it be impossi– AAAAH, FUCK!!"
A scream of pain came from his mouth, but he shut it right away. He didn't want to attract Seris's attention; she would know something strange was going on the moment she saw him, and so he endured the pain.
His body felt like it was burning, his bones breaking, but he endured the pain. Soon, fifteen seconds passed. Ayren had his eyes closed, he lost strength, and his body collapsed to the floor while panting.
After a few more seconds, the pain completely passed, and he decided to get out of there quickly before anyone came and then returned to his apartment. As soon as he entered the house, he immediately noticed the changes. The place seemed lower—the sink, the cabinets, everything.
"No, it's not the things that are lower, I really did get taller. Fuck, fuck. How is this possible?" Ayren said as he looked at his legs, on his body the pants were shorter, showing parts of his shins.
He didn't know what to think, but the sparkle in his eyes grew. He ran back to the bedroom again, quickly clicking on the window where he had opened the second ad.
His eyesight had always been a little bad, he probably should've worn glasses but never cared about it until now.
He soon did what the ad said, closing and opening his eyes for a few seconds, resting his eyes, and other things. As he was finishing, he mentally prepared himself.
'The pain should come now…'
And, as he thought, as soon as he finished, his eyes burned as if stung by thousands of wasps at once. He shut his eyes instantly while throwing himself to the ground, clutching his head. This was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life, nothing had ever compared. Tears fell immediately.
But, lucky for him, the pain lasted only five seconds and again disappeared as if it had never been there. But maybe due to the trauma, Ayren didn't open his eyes again so soon.
His heart was racing. He calmed down after a few minutes. Still didn't open his eyes.
"If I'm going to test this, it has to be in a cool way at least. My near vision is actually fine, the problem is distance… I should test outside." Ayren went to the small balcony of his room with his eyes closed, he was excited to test the results. On his mouth, a slight sincere smile that who knows, when it last appeared.
He used his hand to navigate until he got out on the balcony and leaned on the edge. Then, after breathing, he opened his eyes.
And then something happened, something he wasn't expecting in any way. Something inside his eyes seemed to expand, like a new reality.
First came a bizarre zoom. Ayren saw the texture of a leaf across the street with precision. A caterpillar, the fungus spots, the transparency of the green. A mosquito stopped near it in high definition.
His field of vision widened like a lens violently. He saw everything. The rooftops around, the ground below, the distant cars, the cat in the neighbor's window, the reflection of a woman combing her hair several houses away, and a couple near a park even farther. Without even turning his head, he saw his own shoulders.
The colors seemed to explode, his world was no longer what he was used to. The windows had colors he had never known or imagined.
A tremendous pain surged from his brain.
His heart raced, and his eyes vibrated like they were about to burn. Ayren's breathing began to fail.
His brain tried to filter the immense amount of information but failed momentarily. Everything he wasn't used to came in at once, thousands of details, thousands of stimuli, and thousands of movements.
His body couldn't handle it, Ayren vomited on the balcony, kneeling with wide eyes. Drool fell from his mouth as he tried to hold on to something.
But he failed, the collapse came quickly. He passed out without a chance to do or think anything.
…
..
.
Several hours passed before Ayren showed signs of waking up.
A muffled groan came from his body. The first thing he felt when waking up was the pain. It wasn't just a simple headache. It was as if something was stuck inside his eyes and brain, something that was burning and not letting him think straight. The back of his head throbbed extremely.
"What the fuck is happening?" Ayren whispered, bringing his hands to his eyes, his body felt heavy. With some effort he dragged himself back to the bedroom again with his eyes closed, not having the courage to open them again.
He got near his mattress, touching it with his hands, and threw himself on it. His body felt terrible, as if he had a huge weight, and his brain wouldn't obey or was overloaded.
After taking deep breaths for several minutes, he got slightly used to the pain and then tried to open his eyes slowly.
He could see the mold, the cracks, and the fissures perfectly, dust particles dancing in the air as if in slow motion. He blinked lightly, each blink, the sharpness seemed to reduce a little.
The pain was huge, but his brain seemed to be decreasing what he saw, like turning down the volume of music that's too loud. His field of vision was still bizarre, and he could see everything around, but that light and color had dimmed with the night.
Little by little, the unbearable pain was lessening, and his thoughts started returning to normal, but this pain seemed endless and wouldn't fully go away so fast.
"Seriously, what the hell is happening to me… Wait. This isn't possible, is it?" Ayren said out loud when suddenly remembering something that could be the reason.
'Eagle Vision.'
"EAGLE VISION! The fucking ad said eagle vision, but how the hell was I supposed to know I'd literally get that? Of course my brain wouldn't handle that much information all at once." Ayren was in disbelief at how literally the ads seemed to work.
"So, even that… if this has no limit… This is dangerous. And really… crazy interesting!"
Ayren said with a smile while closing his eyes, still wincing in pain. But on his lips, a strange smile appeared once again.