Chapter 2: The Aftermath
Mason woke to the smell of stale beer and the sound of his own breathing. The couch cushions had left a crease down the side of his face, and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a dumpster. He blinked at the ceiling. The morning sun cut through the dusty blinds, striping the room in pale gold.
He sat up slowly. His head throbbed. He pressed two fingers to his temple and tried to piece the night together.
The show. Selena. The chicken bit. Rachel at the afterparty. After that, nothing. Just a warm smear of color and a sense that something had happened, something he should remember.
He checked his phone. Eleven missed messages, all from Jordan. The texts started normal, asking if he was alive, and turned increasingly frantic halfway down. The last one read: call me when you wake up. serious.
Mason thumbed a reply: I'm awake. what's wrong.
The read receipt appeared instantly. Jordan's typing bubble bounced for a full minute before the message arrived: you really don't remember anything?
Mason stared at the words. The sense of unease curled tighter in his stomach. He typed back: remember what.
Jordan's reply came in fragments, three messages in quick succession.
you turned into someone else.
we had to say the trigger to snap you out.
just stay home today. don't leave.
Mason read them twice. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He wanted to ask what trigger, what they meant, but the words felt too heavy. He locked the phone and tossed it onto the cushion.
His apartment was a mess. Empty bottles on the coffee table. A pizza box on the floor that he didn't remember ordering. He stood up, and the room tilted for a second before settling. The kitchen sink held last week's dishes. He turned on the tap and drank straight from the faucet, cold water running down his chin.
From the hallway, a door creaked. Mason's roommate, Dev, shuffled out in boxers and a wrinkled t-shirt, hair pointing in six directions. He yawned and squinted at Mason.
"You're up early."
"It's noon."
"Early for you." Dev shuffled past him to the coffee maker. He measured grounds with the vague aim of a man running on autopilot. "Good show last night?"
Mason leaned against the counter. "I don't know. I don't remember half of it."
"That's how you know it was good." Dev poured water into the reservoir and hit the brew button. "Jordan texted me. Said something about you losing it at the party."
A fresh spike of tension ran through Mason's shoulders. "Jordan talks too much."
"He said you were acting weird. Like, hypnotist weird." Dev glanced at him sideways. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." The words came out sharper than he meant. He softened his voice. "Just tired."
Dev shrugged. The coffee maker gurgled and hissed. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching it drip.
The silence felt louder than it should. Mason's mind kept circling the same empty spot, the gap where the night should have been. He remembered Rachel's face, her hand on his arm. Then nothing.
"You know what I always say," Dev said, sighing. "Never trust a hypnotist."
Mason snorted. "Hypnosis isn't real."
"Tell that to your missing memory."
Dev pulled two mugs from the cabinet and poured. His movements were easy, unhurried. Steam curled off the black surface. He slid a mug across the counter to Mason, who caught it with both hands.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Dev took a long sip of his coffee and made a satisfied sound. "So. What happened with that girl from the party? Rachel, was it?"
Mason's stomach did something complicated. "I don't know. I think I left early."
"Left early? You never leave early." Dev grinned. "She must have scared you off."
"She didn't scare me. I just..." Mason trailed off. There was a shape in his memory, soft and pink-edged. He couldn't grip it. "I had a weird night. That's all."
"Whatever you say." Dev set down his mug and stretched. His phone buzzed on the counter, and he picked it up, scrolling through notifications. "Speaking of weird nights, Chloe called me this morning in hysterics. Apparently someone made a scene at the loft after she left. Some guy trying to grab strangers and asking them to call him pretty."
Mason's blood went cold. He tightened his hands around the coffee mug.
Dev glanced up at him. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"No."
"Huh." Dev's eyes narrowed. He studied Mason for a long moment, then shrugged. "Well, whoever it was, Chloe's not handling it well. She's staying in tonight."
"Chloe," Mason repeated. The name bounced around in his head. He felt the edges of a memory, bright and slippery. "She said something before she left."
"She says a lot of things. She was drunk."
"No, this was specific." Mason's frown deepened. He could almost hear it, a woman's voice, light and teasing. The words danced just out of reach. "Something about sleeping. A bedtime thing."
Dev raised an eyebrow. "Did you hit your head last night?"
"Maybe." Mason pressed his palm flat against his forehead. The memory dissolved every time he tried to hold it. "I don't know. Forget it."
He carried his mug to the living room and dropped onto the couch. Dev followed, settling in the worn armchair across from him. The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic from the street below.
"You ever get that feeling," Mason said, "like you're missing something important? Like there's a hole in your head and you can't reach it?"
Dev considered the question. "Once. I lost my keys for three days. Turned out they were in the freezer."
"That's not the same."
"No." Dev's voice softened. "But it's all I've got."
Mason drained the rest of his coffee. The bitter taste grounded him. He looked at his phone again. Another message from Jordan: don't test it. whatever you do. don't test it.
He locked the screen. The words buzzed in his chest.
Dev got up and padded to the bathroom. Water ran. Mason sat alone in the living room, listening to the sounds of his roommate's morning routine. Dust drifted through the light coming in the blinds.
The trigger. Jordan had mentioned a trigger. Selena had whispered something in his ear. He knew that much, that she leaned close and her breath was warm and her words went somewhere deep. But the content of it, the actual words, they stayed hidden. Buried under everything else.
He closed his eyes. Replayed the show in his mind. The lemon. The chicken. His hand glued to his head. All of it theatrical, funny, easy to dismiss. Then the private moment at the end, her lips near his ear, and after that, nothing until the afterparty.
"Sleep." He said it aloud, testing the word. It felt close. Wrong, somehow. Like a key that didn't fit.
The bathroom door opened. Dev emerged, smelling like toothpaste. He stopped in the doorway, towel slung over his shoulder.
"You doing okay, man? You look pale."
"I'm fine." Mason stood up. He needed to move, to shake the crawly feeling under his skin. "I think I'm gonna go for a walk."
Dev stepped aside. "Sure. I'll be here."
Mason grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door. He was halfway out when Dev's voice caught him.
"Oh hey. Becca's coming over tonight. She's got that presentation she's panicking about."
"Which one?"
"The sleep research one. That weird stuff you two were talking about last week."
Mason paused with his hand on the doorframe. The words sleep research lingered in the air. He felt a flicker, a pull in his chest.
"I'll be back before then," he said.
"Sleep tight," Dev said, grinning. "Princess."
The words hit like a freight train.
Mason's knees buckled. He grabbed the doorframe and held on as the world tilted sideways. Heat flooded his chest, spreading outward in slow waves. His fingers curled against the wood, nails scraping the paint.
Dev's grin faded. "Mason?"
The change was faster this time. He felt it in his bones, the way his posture shifted without his permission. His shoulders rolled back. His spine curved inward. His hands slid from the doorframe and migrated to his hips, palms pressed against his own body like he was checking himself.
"Oh." The word came out high and breathless. "Oh my."
"Mason." Dev's voice cracked. "What the hell."
Mason turned. The morning light caught his face. His eyes were wide, his lips parted, and he was looking at Dev like he was the most fascinating thing in the world. He took a step forward, hips swaying.
"Don't call me Mason," he said. "That's not my name anymore."
The heavy swell in his chest felt bigger this time. Fuller. He ran his hands over his shirt, pressing, savoring. A low moan slipped out of him.
"I'm Bianca," he breathed. "And I'm so, so happy to see you."
Dev stumbled backward, his back hitting the armchair. "Mason, come on. Cut it out."
"Cut what out?" Bianca's voice lilted, honey-sweet and teasing. She walked toward him, and her hips rolled with every step like she'd been practicing in heels. "I'm not cutting anything out. I'm just getting started."
"This isn't funny." Dev's voice came out thin. He held up both hands, palms out. "You're scaring me."
"Scaring you?" Bianca pouted, and the expression looked alien on Mason's face yet somehow natural at the same time. "I would never scare you. I'm the sweetest thing you've ever seen."
She reached out and took Dev's wrist. His hand trembled, but she ignored it. She guided his palm to her chest, pressing it flat against the fabric of her shirt.
"Feel that?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "They're so much bigger today. I don't know how that's possible, but I can feel them. All the weight of them. All the softness."
Dev's face went through several colors at once. He wrenched his hand free. "Mason, snap out of it. This isn't you."
"Bianca." She corrected him with a patient smile, like a mom explaining something to a slow child. "My name is Bianca. Mason's not here right now. He went away for a little while."
"Well, he needs to come back." Dev sidestepped around the armchair, putting it between them. "You're not you. You've been hypnotized. There's something wrong with your brain."
Bianca laughed. It was a bright, tinkling sound that didn't belong in this body. "There's nothing wrong with me. I'm perfect. I'm everything a girl should be. I just need someone to appreciate me."
She rounded the armchair. Dev backed toward the kitchen, knocking over a stool in his haste. It clattered on the tile floor, and he flinched at the noise.
"Hey." He tried to keep his voice steady. "Hey, what was the trigger? The words Jordan used to snap you out of it last night?"
Bianca tilted her head. The morning light caught her eyes, and they were Mason's eyes, but something glittered behind them that made Dev's skin crawl. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've always been Bianca."
"You haven't. You've been Mason for the last three years. We shared a lease. I watched you eat cereal in your underwear during finals week."
"That was someone else." Bianca shrugged. "He sounds boring."
"He paid half the rent. You're telling me you're not him?"
Bianca stepped closer. Dev's back hit the refrigerator. The hum of the motor vibrated through his spine. She put one hand on the fridge beside him, caging him in, and leaned close. Her breath smelled like stale beer and coffee.
"I don't care about rent." Her voice was a coo. "I care about being seen. About being wanted. Don't you want me, Dev? I can be so good. I'll do anything you ask."
"Anything?" Dev's voice cracked on the word.
"Anything." She punctuated it with a wink. "I'm a people pleaser. That's just who I am."
"And that's the problem." Dev ducked under her arm and made a break for the hallway. He grabbed his phone from the bathroom counter and jabbed at the screen with shaking fingers.
Bianca followed him, slower this time, her hips swaying like she had nowhere to be. She leaned against the bathroom doorframe and watched him fumble with the phone.
"Who are you calling?" she asked.
"Jordan." The line rang. "Someone who knows how to fix this."
The read receipt had been there all night. Jordan picked up on the second ring, his voice ragged. "Dev? What's going on?"
"It happened again. Mason went full bimbo and I don't know how to turn him back." Dev's words came out in a rush. "He's calling himself Bianca and trying to get me to touch his chest."
Bianca's ears perked at the word chest. She ran her hands over her own, squeezing, a soft pleased sound escaping her lips.
Jordan's voice was sharp. "Did you say the trigger?"
"No. I don't know the trigger. You didn't tell me the trigger."
"What did you say to him? Before it happened?"
Dev thought back. His mind spun over the morning's events. Coffee. Chloe. The joke.
"I said the same thing Rachel said last night." Horror dawned in his voice. "I said sleep tight, princess. As a joke."
There was silence on the other end of the line. Bianca wandered off, humming, and Dev heard her go into the living room. A moment later, music started playing from his phone speaker, something with a driving beat.
"Jordan. Jordan, talk to me."
"That's the trigger." Jordan's voice came out hollow. "Sleep tight, princess. That's what Selena installed in him. Say it and he becomes her. Say it again and he comes back."
Dev sank onto the toilet lid. "So I just say it again?"
"It should work. But the longer she's out, the worse it gets. Last night we had to wait, like, half an hour before we figured it out, and when he came back he didn't remember. By that point though, he was... more. Bolder." There was a pause. "Is this version worse than last night?"
Dev poked his head into the hallway. Bianca had found a scarf in Dev's closet and was draping it around her neck like a fashion model, posing in front of the mirror in the hallway. She caught his reflection watching her and blew a kiss.
"Yeah." Dev's voice was barely a whisper. "Yeah, it's worse."
"Okay. Okay, just say the trigger. It should snap her back. She'll be confused, and she won't remember, but she'll be Mason again."
Dev took a shaky breath. "And if it doesn't work?"
"Then I drive over and we figure it out." Jordan's voice steeled. "But it'll work. She probably designed it to be reversible. She's a performer. She wouldn't want her party trick to break someone."
Dev hung up and pocketed the phone. He walked into the living room. Bianca was spinning in front of the mirror now, the scarf trailing behind her. She caught his eye and beamed.
"Look at me," she said. "I'm beautiful, aren't I? Say it. I need to hear it."
"Sleep tight, princess," Dev said.
The music from the phone cut out. Bianca froze mid-spin. The scarf slipped from her hands and pooled on the floor. She blinked, and the hazy pink glow behind her eyes drained away like water down a sink.
She looked down at her hands. Looked at the room. Looked at Dev, whose face was pale and dotted with sweat.
"What's happening?" Mason's voice was hoarse. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Dev let out a long, shuddering breath. "You don't remember."
"Remember what?" Mason looked around, then down at the scarf on the floor. He picked it up, frowning. "This yours?"
"You were not okay." Dev sat down heavily on the armchair, both hands gripping his knees. "It happened again. You became her. For, I don't know, a minute. And you were worse this time. Nastier."
Mason stared at him. The word worse echoed in his skull. His chest still felt weird, tingly, like an echo of something that had been there a second ago.
"What do you mean, worse?"
Dev was quiet for a moment. Then he reached for the phone on the coffee table and unlocked it. "I'm going to call Jordan. We need to figure out how to undo this permanently, because I'm not living with someone who turns into a horny bimbo every time I make a dumb joke."