After the whole ordeal with that man I didn't even get his name, I woke up to sunlight seeping through the curtains. I felt his hand rested over me, pulling me to himself.
For a second, I didn't move. It felt… nice. Warm. Heavy in a comforting way, like being wrapped in a weighted blanket that smelled like expensive cologne and an earthy fragrance. Part of me wanted to sink back into the mattress, close my eyes, and pretend this was my life—waking up next to a stupidly attractive man with an accent that made even insults sound elegant.
But reality jabbed me in the ribs.
I got up from the bed tiptoed silently through the room gathering all my belongings and getting dressed I was out of the room and out the door. Forget about that night, he was a good distraction but I needed to continue living my life, part of me felt sad and wanted to remain there with him.
I didn't look back. I didn't dare. If I looked back, I might convince myself to crawl into bed with him again—just for a minute, just to feel his warmth or hear his voice. And that was dangerous. Worse than the man who'd tried to choke me in an alley.
That man—whoever he truly was—was the kind of danger that didn't bruise your neck. He bruised your judgment.
So I walked home with my hair a mess, my clothes wrinkled, and one shoe slightly damp because life hated me. My chest was tight, like something had been left unfinished… or something had begun.
But I forced myself to shake it off.
I had bigger issues.
Much, much bigger.
...
I noticed strange things happening in my day-to-day life, for the past few days now. I managed to get a part time gig tutoring history course online for the time being.
At first I blamed stress. Trauma. Post-alley-strangulation side effects. Normal things.
Then the weirdness escalated.
One of it was the random burst of strength I had, like squeezing too hard and breaking a jar or ripping apart a tub of toothpaste.
The toothpaste incident had been particularly humiliating. One minute I was trying to roll the tube from the bottom like a responsible adult; the next I was staring at a sad splatter of mint paste dripping down the mirror. I'd stood there for a full minute, brush in my mouth, asking myself if I had always been capable of accidentally committing dental manslaughter.
Or my listening which had tremendously gotten better, I would say I was partially deaf but it held okay.
Except now?
I could practically hear my upstairs neighbor breathing.
Breathing.
Who hears breathing through a ceiling?
At one point I heard a conversation from two floors down about someone's fungal infection and nearly threw myself out the window.
Or the incredible sense of smell I seem to have developed, I am used to my nose being like that of someone with a cold.
But suddenly I could smell everything.
I could smell the bakery across the street before they opened their doors. I could smell my neighbor's cheap cologne mixed with weed the moment he stepped into the elevator three floors below me. I could even smell emotions—fear had a sharp, metallic edge; anger smelled bitter; sadness was damp, like an old basement.
I didn't ask for any of that.
I got random jars of pain on my body I can't seem to locate it but I know it's there. Where it comes from or heading too.
It felt like lightning traveling through my bones—fast, hot, then gone. Sometimes it was in my shoulders, sometimes in my jaw, sometimes in my spine. Always fleeting, always mysterious, always making me pause and think:
Am I dying?
Am I mutating?
Is this menopause at 25?
Is this karma for sleeping with a dangerously attractive stranger?
Come to think of it, it all started after sleeping with that man.
I hated how true that felt.
It was like my body remembered him even though I was trying so hard not to. Like something had been triggered, switched on, awakened. Every strange sensation felt connected to him, and the idea sent goosebumps crawling up my arms.
My inner monologue was disrupted by the searing pain from my inner upper forearm.
It was sharp and sudden, like someone branding me from the inside out. I cried out before I could stop myself, clutching my arm.
I managed to waddle to the bathroom to go see what it was. I raised up my shirt, and I was met with the glowing of my arm. I have never heard of birth marks glowing, still in shock and pain.
My breath hitched.
It wasn't just glowing—it was pulsing. A slow, steady rhythm like a heartbeat. The mark, which had always been nothing more than a weird patch of discoloration, was now lit like someone had tattooed molten gold under my skin.
It illuminated the bathroom tiles, casting a soft amber glow around me like a lantern. The light grew brighter each time my heart thudded, syncing with me like it was alive.
"No. No no no no—absolutely not," I whispered.
I poked it.
It didn't help.
The pain intensified briefly, blooming up my arm, curling around my shoulder, sinking into my spine. My knees wobbled. I held onto the sink to keep myself upright, sweat forming along my hairline.
This wasn't normal.
This wasn't stress.
This wasn't anything human.
There was no denying it. He was responsible.
The second the thought formed, a heat flickered under the glowing mark—as though it agreed.
As though it reacted.
I stumbled back, breathing hard.
My mind raced through every possibility.
Had he drugged me?
Injected me with something?
Marked me like some kind of barbaric… I don't know… werewolf mating ritual?
Did I now have superpowers?
Was I dying?
Both seemed possible.
And of course, the universe being what it was, the next thought that popped into my head was:
I need to find him.
I hated that.
I hated that more than the glowing birthmark and the mysterious body pains and the broken toothpaste tube combined.
But I needed answers.
And the only person who could give them to me…
…was the man whose name I didn't even know.
I pressed a shaking hand to the mark again. The glow dimmed slightly, pulsing slower now, almost calming.
Almost reassuring.
Which made me panic even more.
Because things that glow should not be reassuring.
"Great," I muttered to myself. "Perfect. I'm glowing like a nuclear potato and the only explanation is a man whose number I don't have, whose last name I don't know, and who I probably left sleeping naked in a bed I ran away from."