I didn't plan it.
That's what I kept telling myself on the walk home. Hands in my pockets, shoulders hunched against the October wind, brain doing that thing where it replays a moment over and over until the details start to blur.
The office Halloween party. Cheap decorations. Cheaper wine.
Someone had brought a fog machine that made the break room smell like burnt plastic and regret. The kind of party where attendance was "optional" in the same way your manager's suggestions were "optional."
I'd been planning to leave after twenty minutes.
I made it to forty-seven.
Maya Reeves.
She'd been talking to me for maybe ten of those minutes. I didn't know her well—different department, different floor. We'd passed each other in the lobby a few times. She always smiled. The kind that reached her eyes and made you feel like maybe she actually meant it.
That night, she cornered me near the snack table while I was contemplating whether the cheese cubes had been sitting out too long to be safe.
"You're Ethan, right?"
"Yeah."
"Marketing?"
"Data analysis. Close enough."
She laughed. I didn't think it was that funny, but I wasn't gonna argue with someone who seemed genuinely happy to talk to me at a work party. Those people were rare.
The conversation drifted. Work gossip I pretended to know about. Weekend plans I didn't have. Normal stuff that felt less normal because I was actually participating in it.
Then someone turned the lights down for some kind of costume contest, and the room went dim. The fog machine kicked into overdrive. Someone knocked over a speaker.
"This is ridiculous," she said.
I agreed wholeheartedly.
"Want to step outside?"
I followed her to the hallway. Quieter there. The fluorescent lights hummed their normal hum instead of the party's chaotic buzz.
We talked for a while. I genuinely don't remember what about. She was easy to talk to. No pressure. No expectations. No feeling like I had to perform some version of myself that was more interesting than the actual version.
Then she leaned in.
Not fast. Not slow.
Just... leaned.
Her lips touched mine.
Half a second. Maybe less. Long enough to register. Not long enough to react.
She pulled back, eyes wide. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry. I thought—"
"It's fine."
"No, seriously, I misread that completely—"
"Maya. It's fine."
She looked like she wanted to say more, search my face for signs of offense or reciprocation or whatever people looked for in these moments. But someone called her name from inside the party. She gave me this apologetic smile that somehow made the whole thing worse and disappeared back into the fog.
I stood there for a minute.
Alone in the hallway.
Trying to figure out if I should feel something about what just happened.
Then I left.
Didn't say goodbye to anyone. Just grabbed my jacket and walked out into the October night like I was escaping a crime scene I hadn't committed.
The walk home took twenty minutes.
I lived in a small apartment three blocks from the office. Convenient. Cheap. Lonely, if I was being honest, which I tried not to be because honesty about that particular detail didn't change anything.
I unlocked the door, dropped my keys on the counter with more force than necessary, and headed straight for the shower.
The hot water helped. It always did. Small mercies.
I told myself it didn't matter. Accidents happen. People misread signals all the time. Social interactions were basically just a series of misunderstandings people agreed to ignore. She'd apologized. I'd said it was fine.
We'd both move on.
Pretend it never happened.
Standard protocol for workplace awkwardness.
Except.
When I closed my eyes, I saw text.
Not metaphorically.
Actual text. Hovering in the dark behind my eyelids like some kind of broken heads-up display that hadn't gotten the memo that reality didn't work like this.
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE
TRIGGER DETECTED
INTENT ANALYSIS: ACCIDENTAL CONTACT
TRAIT ACQUISITION PENDING...
I opened my eyes.
Steam filled the bathroom. Water ran down my face, mixing with what I hoped was just more water and not the beginning of a mental breakdown.
No text.
I closed them again.
Still there.
TRAIT ACQUIRED: COMMON
[ENHANCED REFLEXES - RANK F]
EFFECT: REACTION TIME +8%
DURATION: PERMANENT
NOTE: FIRST ACQUISITION. WELCOME, HOST.
"What the hell."
My voice sounded thin in the small space. Like it didn't quite believe what it was saying either.
I turned off the shower. Grabbed a towel. Sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the bathroom tile for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to five minutes.
Closed my eyes again.
The text was gone.
I waited.
Nothing.
Opened them. Stared at the tile wall that definitely hadn't installed a fantasy game system into my brain.
Maybe I'd had more wine than I thought. Maybe the fog machine fumes had messed with my head. Maybe someone had spiked the cheese cubes and I was experiencing some kind of dairy-based hallucination.
Maybe I was just tired.
Yeah. Tired.
That made sense.
I got dressed. Went to bed.
Didn't sleep.
The next morning, I tested it.
Not because I believed anything had actually happened. More because my brain refused to let it go until I proved it was just stress or exhaustion or some weird sleep-deprived hallucination.
Small things first.
My phone slipped off the counter while I was making coffee. My hand shot out and caught it before my conscious brain registered it had fallen.
Fluke.
I knocked my coffee mug while reaching for the sugar. Grabbed it mid-tip.
Coincidence.
A pen rolled off my desk at work an hour later. I snatched it out of the air without looking up from my monitor.
That one was harder to explain.
Every time, my hand moved before I fully registered what was happening. Like my body had installed a preview feature and was reacting to things half a second before they became problems.
Eight percent faster.
It didn't sound like much.
But I felt it.
I sat at my desk, staring at my monitor, not seeing the spreadsheet in front of me. Just thinking about percentages. About reflexes I hadn't earned. About text that shouldn't exist.
This wasn't real.
It couldn't be real.
But my hand was still tingling from catching that pen.
I pulled out my phone. Typed "hallucinations after kiss" into the search bar.
Stared at it for ten seconds.
Deleted it.
Tried "sudden reflex improvement."
WebMD suggested I might have a neurological condition. Reddit suggested I try cocaine. Neither seemed helpful.
I put the phone down.
Across the office, through the glass walls of my cube, I saw Maya at her desk. She glanced up, saw me looking, and quickly looked away.
She thought I was upset.
I wasn't upset.
I was confused.
And starting to think that whatever had happened last night—whatever this was—it wasn't over.
Not even close.