I woke up at 2:17 a.m. with the very clear understanding that my life had already gone wrong.
Not in the I forgot to pay rent way.
Not even in the I'm naked in a stranger's apartment way.
This was worse.
This was the my brain has installed new software without my consent kind of wrong.
The ceiling above me was smooth, white, and expensive. Not "recently painted" expensive—this was architect-approved minimalism. No cracks. No water stains. No personality. The kind of ceiling that silently judges you for existing beneath it.
I blinked.
The room didn't blur.
It sharpened.
Every line became precise. Every shadow had definition. I could count the threads in the curtains without squinting. I could hear the hum of the city outside—not noise, but layers. Tires on wet asphalt. A siren three blocks away. The faint click of an elevator cable somewhere in the building.
My heart rate spiked.
"Okay," I whispered to myself, my voice steady in a way I didn't trust. "Either I'm dead, or I finally snapped."
I sat up.
The bed was huge. Too huge. Hotel-suite huge. My hands—my hands—were resting on Egyptian cotton sheets that probably cost more than my monthly groceries used to.
Used to.
That word echoed oddly.
Memories drifted up uninvited.
Not flashes. Not fragments.
Entire files.
Case law. Names of judges. Legal doctrines with footnotes. Harvard classrooms I had never been in. Conversations I did not remember having but somehow knew verbatim.
And layered underneath all of it—
—an open-plan office with flickering fluorescent lights
—a jammed printer I pretended was "awaiting IT" for three days
—cold coffee reheated twice
—my manager explaining "team synergy" while stealing credit for my work
I clutched my head.
"No. No, no, no."
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, half-expecting the room to wobble. It didn't. Balance came instantly, naturally, like this body had been mine forever.
The mirror was across the room.
I didn't want to look.
I looked anyway.
Mike Ross stared back at me.
You don't need a mirror to know when a face isn't yours. There's a disconnect—a subtle lag between intention and expression. But this face moved when I did. Brown eyes. Familiar jawline. A little tired. A little too sharp.
Too… composed.
I raised my hand. He raised his.
"Okay," I said again, firmer now. "Let's establish facts."
I scanned the room without meaning to—
—and my vision changed.
Not literally. There were no glowing outlines or sci-fi HUDs. But my brain began narrating in a tone that felt disturbingly professional.
[OBSERVATION: Apartment size approximately 1,200 square feet. Furnishings high-end, minimalist. No personal clutter. Indicates recent move or high disposable income with low sentimental attachment.]
I froze.
That… wasn't me thinking.
That was something thinking through me.
[DEDUCTION: This is not my original residence. Probability of corporate-provided housing or post-merger upgrade: high.]
My stomach dropped.
Merger.
The word carried weight.
I staggered toward the window and pulled the curtain aside.
New York City stared back.
Not the tourist version. The real one—steel and glass, glowing like a machine that never sleeps because it doesn't have to. Traffic flowed below like blood through arteries. The skyline was sharp enough to cut.
I knew where I was.
I had never been here.
And then the final piece slid into place.
Suits.
Not the clothes.
The show.
I laughed. A short, sharp sound that bounced off the walls and came back wrong.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
I wasn't reincarnated.
I wasn't summoned.
I was dropped.
Into a television drama.
A legal drama.
A quiet one. No explosions. No background score swelling to warn me when things were about to go wrong. Just expensive silence and people who spoke like every sentence mattered.
And the worst part?
I hadn't watched it.
I knew the concept—everyone did. Hotshot lawyers. Power plays. Smirks as weapons. But I didn't know the plot. I didn't know the villains. I didn't know who betrayed whom in season whatever.
I was genre-aware.
But script-blind.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I flinched like it was a gunshot.
One notification.
Harvey Specter
Tomorrow, 8 a.m. Don't be late.
I stared at the name.
The name stared back.
Final Boss energy radiated off the screen.
I swallowed.
"Okay," I muttered. "Rule one."
I raised my index finger.
"Do not panic."
Immediately, my heart ignored me.
I picked up the phone to distract myself and opened the first email I saw. A legal document. Dense. Long. The kind of thing my old self would've archived without reading and pretended was "in progress."
The moment my eyes touched the text—
—the world slid.
I was no longer standing in the apartment.
I was standing in an office.
An endless one.
Gray cubicles stretched in every direction, identical and soul-crushing. Filing cabinets lined the walls, already labeled. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere, a phone rang and was ignored.
I blinked.
I was back in the apartment.
But the document—
—I knew it.
Every clause. Every comma. Every typo.
I didn't feel brilliant.
I felt like a scanner.
A very tired scanner that just clocked in for a shift it couldn't quit.
I leaned against the desk, breathing slowly.
"So," I said to no one, "I have a perfect memory, a mind palace that looks like my worst job, and tomorrow I work for a man who probably eats fear for breakfast."
This was not a power fantasy.
This was a workplace hazard.
I looked back at my reflection, adjusting the collar of a suit that fit too well.
"I don't know the plot," I told myself. "I don't know the rules."
I paused.
Then nodded.
"Which means I make my own."
I straightened, shoulders back, face neutral. Not confident. Not scared.
Professional.
Tomorrow, I would walk into Pearson Hardman.
I would nod during dramatic silences.
I would talk when everyone else talked.
I would hide how much I knew and pretend I knew less than I did.
Because in a drama world full of lawyer gods—
—the most dangerous thing you can be…
…is a normal guy who doesn't know his role yet.
And with that comforting thought, I finally lay back down, staring at the ceiling that still judged me silently, and waited for morning to ruin everything.