My mornings always began with the piercing shriek of an alarm clock at 5:30 AM.
My right hand, moving with a practice honed over thousands of repetitions, slapped the snooze button without my conscious input. Nine minutes of blissful, stolen rest. Then the cycle would repeat, my body locked in this familiar, miserable dance until 6:45, when the real alarm would blare, the one I couldn't snooze.
That was the point of no return.
I would swing my legs out of bed, my bare feet slapping against the cold hardwood floor, the shock of it enough to jolt me into a state of semi-awareness. The bathroom would be next. A quick, efficient shower in lukewarm water. No lingering. No enjoyment. A face wash with no facial. Toothbrush to the teeth, and right after I'd be gargling that green frothy stuff.
A morning shit and shave. No time for breakfast since I'd always sacrifice those last two or three minutes before 6:45 in exchange for the extra sleep I'd gotten from my alarm snoozing, and the day would begin.
At least, that's what would have happened on most mornings.
Except this one was different, somehow, the moment I awoke. Something inside of me just told me that my schedule was going to be thrown off completely. An illogical sensation, yet it was pervasive; an itch within my brain.
The world just felt... different, in some inexplicable way. I shuffled out of bed, staring as the entire room seemed to spin, my legs feeling too light. My whole body seemed wrong; I had no clue what was happening. Maybe I had drunk too much last night, though I rarely drank.
And I couldn't stop trembling, not in anticipation or apprehension - it was almost as if I couldn't even recognize my own room, no matter how familiar it had to have been after living in the apartment for nearly seven years. Even when I focused and willed myself not to be disoriented, I was.
Nothing in here felt real.
Everything seemed to have a sharp, yet dreamy quality. I shook my head, habitually checking my phone for any messages or emails. The lock screen showed the usual flood of notifications, but they were all wrong. The names, the context, everything. It was as if someone had stolen my phone and replaced all my contacts and apps with bizarre alternatives.
Still, what truly caught my attention was the time.
07:00 AM.
Not 5:30. Not 6:45.
Seven. In the morning.
I'd slept through everything. Not just one alarm, but both. My meticulously crafted schedule, the rigid framework that governed my life, had been shattered.
In a rush to recover some semblance of control, I scrambled to get to the bathroom, my mind already calculating how late I'd be, and the reprimand I would surely face from Ms. Harrow.
Except that the house must've gone a crazy flip at some point.
I stood at a place that could only have logically been the bathroom, but it wasn't there, instead a wall where it should've been. As I ran a hand along the cool white tile of what was an actual wall, my mind continued to race, conjuring a wild delusion about someone having pranked me, like in those videos where would kidnap an unsuspecting, sleeping homeowner and ship them off somewhere else entirely.
Or maybe have them wake up in the hospital, just to tell them ten years had passed and they're a father of triplets or something equally ridiculous.
'That's impossible, though...' I thought, taking several long moments to reassure myself that the whole situation was an overreaction, and likely a dream. This was the consequence of not eating something in the evening, I was sure of it. But still... I wanted to look a little closer, maybe see if I could discover where this absurd ruse had taken place and call someone, just in case I'd actually ended up... lost.
After glancing around my unfamiliar living space for several seconds, I finally found what had to be the bathroom door. I took a tentative step through and my whole body began to feel wrong again.
That's when I saw it.
Him.
Or rather, myself.
In the mirror.
Staring back at me was a face I did not recognize. Not just a tired version, or a haggard version. A completely different person.
A stranger stared back.
The man in the reflection was... beautiful. It might've as well been an angel, and I might've as well been fucking dead. I took a nervous step toward the mirror, and it did too; the reflection reacted, mimicking every nervous gesture, the hand now lifting as my own was.
An exaggerated exhale that was really a disbelieving laugh left my mouth.
The stranger responded in the same way, and my gut clenched with a sense of anxious wonder.
I stared at myself, at my own body and the figure reflected within. Every line and shape.
A softer beauty, with features so perfectly proportioned they seemed almost inhuman. High cheekbones, a jawline that was defined yet delicate, a perfect mop of black hair that was messy enough for it to be carefree yet trim enough not to be out of control, and large, silver eyes that held a startling, luminous quality. Unreal.
Even his eyelashes. His lips. Everything.
All the pieces of a puzzle that simply shouldn't have come together so seamlessly, to the point where his face seemed to almost hurt to stare at for too long, an anatomical absurdity that was so absurdly appealing that it could only have existed within the safe confines of fantasy and art.
He could have been a model or an actor, not the accountant I was.
So maybe I was dreaming, I surmised.
A really vivid fucking dream, or maybe even... an illusion? Something must have happened when I went to bed and it somehow altered my perception; my body.
Nothing made sense anymore. I had to calm myself.
Though what kind of dream lasted for more than two hours...?
If this wasn't a dream...
I staggered back, wondering whether my reality had just been fucked over.
"Who are you?" My voice was distinctively masculine, deep, soothing and oddly alluring. "How are you doing this?" I muttered to nobody in particular. The lips moved again and my reflection sighed as I did.
I staggered out of the bathroom, leaning my back against the nearest wall and exhaling sharply. "What the fuck. I am seriously fucking tripping..." It didn't matter.
In dreams, logic could be distorted, or it could become a trivial, fleeting, incomprehensible thing altogether.
Dreams made the rules. But when it came to perception, that was far less ambiguous. And one could always tell if a dream was a dream, a delusion, by checking.
By checking one's perception.
All the possibilities swam in my mind: amnesia, induced by an accidental or intentional brain damage that might have occurred overnight—perhaps even a surgical operation.
All the different drugs and substances that might have caused some kind of severe neurological effects and induced these hallucinations.
Illusions, to be precise. Illusions like this, ones of visual distortion and misrepresentation of objects and images and smells. Though, I supposed, those would be better classified under 'delusions.' Or perhaps under another subheading entirely.
Was this real or was I going to wake up with an IV attached to me and a bunch of worried doctors telling me that they were 'so glad I was finally awake, that they'd tried for over a week, but I was comatose'?
"Umh... you're awake already?" I was so preoccupied with my musings that the sound of another person speaking caught me completely off-guard; I was supposed to be alone, but I was also supposed not to be in this place. "Are you okay? You look..."
I froze.
A young woman, someone with red hair and bright green eyes that were simultaneously nervous, innocent, and filled with unmistakable adoration. The only thing about her that seemed at all reasonable and comprehensible was her expression—and her sheer, all-engulfing nearly nakedness.
"Who the fuck are you?" I could have been staring at a damned Playboy model for all I knew. And the woman could have been staring back as if I were her greatest wet dream made manifest; someone she had seen and obsessively dreamed of for countless hours.
"Huh...?"
A flicker of surprise and hurt marred her already distraught expression. "Damien...?"
Damien.
I began laughing. Not a quiet chuckle, but a full, unrestrained belly laugh that echoed in the spacious, unfamiliar apartment. I couldn't help it. The absurdity of it all had finally broken through my numb confusion. My name wasn't Damien. My name was Alex.
"Damien..." She repeated, her voice trembling now. "You're scaring me. Did you hit your head?"
"Oh, honey..." I said, the word rolling off my tongue with an unfamiliar ease. I hadn't called anyone honey in my life. "You have no idea."
The situation was so far beyond the realm of normalcy that it was almost comical.
Still... I needed to find a way to get out of this dream, or hallucination, or whatever the fuck was going on. I couldn't just stand here, admiring the view of this gorgeous redhead who was apparently my... what? Wife? Live-in girlfriend? Mistress? A total stranger who had broken into my home to play a prank?
The possibilities were both horrifying and hilarious.
I couldn't afford to stay here any longer. I had to go outside, see the sun, feel the ground beneath my feet, and confirm that this entire world hadn't just gone insane.
"I'm going to go for a walk." I announced, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I could even talk to this figment of my imagination. "I'll be back."
"A w-walk?" Her eyes widened. "But... you don't just go for walks, Damien. The women outside will... they'll lose their minds if they see you!" She was wringing her hands, her worry palpable.
'The women outside will lose their minds?' What kind of a fucked-up dream was this? It sounded like she was describing a zombie apocalypse, except with... horny women?
"Look, whatever your name is." The girl opened her mouth, but I quickly interjected, knowing that once she gave me a name, I'd never hear the end of it. "I don't care. I need to get the fuck out of here. Something is very wrong."
"....."
She just stood there, frozen as a statue.
I groaned. "Jesus Christ." Why the hell couldn't I just wake up? Why wasn't a car speeding toward me right now? "Alright, that's it. I'm outta here."
I stormed past the girl, taking long, fast strides. At a closer glance, she was not only beautiful, but downright perfect. One of those exquisite and rare feminine beauties that looked as if they were constructed specifically for the purpose of becoming models or actresses.
'This illusion is utterly unrealistic.' I decided.
What would have been, perhaps, a very enticing sight if I were living in a different world, became my least concern as I strode past her and hurried down an unfamiliar set of stairs.
"Wait...!"
Footsteps followed after me.
The redhead's house—or this illusion's house—was huge, with a sizable and well-maintained yard. It wasn't what I had expected. My apartment was a tiny studio on the fifth floor of an old building.
This place looked like a suburban mansion. It was just another layer of unreality that I didn't have the mental bandwidth to process right now.
I found the front door. I didn't know what I was expecting.
A busy city street. A quiet suburban neighborhood. A fucking barren wasteland.
I didn't care. Anything would've been better than this strange limbo. Anything would have brought me back to the real world.
The moment I stepped outside, a wave of heat and humidity hit me. The early sun was a merciless, white-hot disc in a clear blue sky.
A typical summer day.
Except it wasn't.
I couldn't quite put my finger on what was missing on this until I took in my surroundings.
Everywhere I looked, there were women. Women jogging, women walking their dogs, women chatting in small groups, women driving by in their cars. A flurry of activity that had not a single drop of masculinity in sight.
A few of them stopped what they were doing and stared at me.
And I mean, they really stared.
Like I was a unicorn. Or a ghost. Or a goddamn walking, talking, male stripper who had just wandered out of a club in broad daylight.
I looked down at myself. I was still in my pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. Not exactly a look that would normally attract this kind of attention, not even from the most desperate of women.
"What the actual fuck..."
A woman, who happened to be jogging by, nearly tripped over her own feet as her eyes fell on me.
She was a tall, athletic-looking blonde with a body that was the epitome of fitness.
She stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening as they fixed on me. Her gaze was so intense, so—
"Is that...?" She breathed, her hand flying to her mouth, then proceeded to take off her earphones.
"I think it is." Another woman, this one a curvy brunette, replied from her porch. She was holding a cup of coffee, but she'd forgotten all about it. "Oh my god... it's him."
"Who?" The blonde asked, her eyes never leaving my face.
"Him. Damien."
'Am I a celebrity or something?'
Considering this body's looks... it was a distinct possibility. It would explain a few things.
"Holy shit..." The blonde whispered. "He's even more gorgeous in person."
I took a step back and closed the door. Meanwhile, the redhead who hastened to catch up to me, let out a distressed whimper. "I told you...!" She wailed. "I told you!"
The women's voices carried through the door.
"Did he see me?"
"I wonder if he's single..."
"He can't be. A guy in this day and age has to be taken."
"Doesn't hurt to dream, right?"
This was insane.
This was utterly, completely, and certifiably insane.
I stood there, my back pressed against the cool wood of the door, my heart pounding like a drum.
"Damien, what's going on with you?"
I walked past her again, ignoring her cries for me to stop. I made my way back to my room, latching it shut for good measure. The last thing I wanted was to have that chick following me around. Soon enough, though—
Knock, knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Damien... please... what's going on, you're scaring me..."
"Iris, what's going with Damien?"
"Did you guys have a fight?"
"Is he okay?"
"Damien, it's Mom, can you open the door for your Mommy, baby, please? We really want to talk to you... are you okay, baby?"
A multitude of women's voices. And they steadily grew louder as more and more women were drawn out to my doorstep.
'Seriously... what is happening?'
Finally, it got to the point that the sheer volume became impossible to ignore.
I needed a moment to think, a moment alone to try and process everything I'd seen.
There was no way I was opening that door for them, though. Still, in a brief moment of clarity, I decided to play along with this game of 'hallucination' just in case that had some effect. If this wasn't a dream... it might give me more control over what was happening.
I wasn't sure, but the desire for logic and sense was deeply ingrained within my consciousness; if nothing else, my hope for waking from this nightmare.
"Ladies..." I spoke up, and the voices quieted almost immediately. "I'm having a bit of an off day and need a moment of solitude. I just had a nightmare and have had the craziest... headache... ever since I woke up today. Could you please give me an hour or two?"
A moment of silence, then the chorus began again.
"A nightmare?"
"Oh, the poor dear..."
"Of course, Damien, take all the time you need, sweetheart."
"We'll be right here if you need anything."
I listened as their footsteps reluctantly retreated, though I could still hear them whispering and shuffling just outside.
This was beyond any sort of dream or hallucination I had ever heard of. This was a full-blown, immersive, alternate reality. I guess there was no use gaslighting myself. This felt... way too real. And I wasn't an idiot. I'd read enough books and watched enough shows to know what this could mean.
It just felt hard to believe. Right upon waking up, no less.
I sighed, rubbing my temples.
Then, I turned my attention back to the phone on the nightstand. I picked it up and sat on the bed, staring down at the screen. There was nothing there that was familiar, yet it was my phone. I knew it was my phone.
This was Damien's phone.
I scrolled through the contacts. Mom, Auntie, Grandma, Iris, and a bunch of other names I didn't recognize. I scrolled further down, my thumb moving automatically across the unfamiliar but somehow intuitive interface of Damien's phone.
The browser was already open to what looked like a custom news aggregator app—probably the default on every device in this world.
The headlines loaded one after another.
"......"
"What the fuck is this…"
Global Population Crisis: Male Birth Rates Continue to Decline
UN projects male-to-female ratio could hit 1:47 by 2045 if current trends persist.
New Law Passed: Men's Mobility Act Expanded
All registered males now require licensed female escorts for international travel; airlines cite "safety and preservation" concerns.
I blinked hard.
"GenderSelect" IVF Trial Halted After 312 Cases of Severe Syndromes
Experimental technology designed to guarantee male offspring linked to catastrophic neurological disorders, organ failure, and "Lotus Syndrome" in surviving children; class-action lawsuit filed against fertility giant VitaGen.
The article preview showed a somber female reporter standing outside a gleaming research campus, her face grave. "Health officials are urging parents to reconsider non-essential gender selection procedures after three toddlers developed irreversible spinal degradation and two others exhibited total cognitive regression by age four. VitaGen maintains the risks were disclosed, but critics say the desperation for male births has created a black-market industry willing to ignore the fine print."
I felt my—Damien's—perfect jaw drop open.
This wasn't some fringe conspiracy. This was front-page, above-the-fold stuff.
I kept scrolling, unable to stop.
National Fertility Alliance Launches "One Husband, Many Futures" Campaign
Major political party introduces Polygamy Legalization Bill, arguing regulated polyandrous unions are the only ethical solution to the birth-rate collapse; "A single healthy man can responsibly father dozens of children—denying him that right is denying humanity its future," says party chair Dr. Mary Shane.
The sub-headline continued: Opponents call the bill "state-sanctioned objectification," while supporters point to successful pilot programs in Scandinavia where select males in government-approved households have increased local birth rates by 340%.
My thumb hovered, trembling.
"He's Mine" Dating App Crashes Again After Viral Post from 22-Year-Old Male Influencer
Single photo of him eating cereal garners 47 million likes in under an hour; stock in parent company surges 18%.
Supreme Court to Hear Case: Can a Man Be "Public Property" for Reproductive Purposes?
Petition by 180,000 women argues that in extreme scarcity, unregistered males should be required to participate in national fertility programs.
I dropped the phone onto the bed like it had burned me.
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