"WHERE THE HELL AM I!" I scream as loud as possible while I

  feel my guts scraping out of my bones.

  "Calm down, Kurio. we haven't

  even got to the good part yet." The dark floating figure says. I

  can't see clearly from all the blood flowing down my face, but I can

  feel him smiling while torturing me.

  "No need to rush Kurio. You

  will get used to it soon."

  My whole body slowly starts

  feeling like it's boiling up.

  "PLEASE STOP!"

  "Humans these days are so

  impatient."

  Suddenly, my limbs are being

  pulled and torn out. I see my view stretch, then blank out.

  All of a sudden, I see again.

  Immediately, I started hyperventilating, I took at least five minutes

  to catch my breath before finally calming down.

  'Thank God it was just a dream.' I

  was wide awake in my room.

  Slowly, my eyes began adjusting to

  the dark environment around me. It looks like it's way past evening.

  I haven't had a dream since

  forever, but why did it have to be a nightmare? Did it have to do

  with what I had for a late-night snack? Now that I think about it,

  there's a fat chance it was the moldy pizza, which I microwaved and

  drank an unhealthy amount of root beer.

  'Besides that, that didn't feel

  like a dream. It felt too real.' I look at my hands and arms, blood

  red and sweating like I was just recently wrung dry of my blood.

  Surprisingly, it looks much worse than it feels.

  Anyhow, it seemed like I woke up

  too early. The last thing I remembered was playing some video games

  with the new cheats I installed. I reach out my trembling hand

  towards my bedside table to grab my phone. As I was reeling my arm

  back, I suddenly got a sudden cramp.

  Aggressively, I snatched my

  blanket and wrapped it around my arm, easing the pain.

  I additionally dragged more of the

  blanket to accommodate for the cold weather. However, the blanket got

  stuck on the right side of the bed.

  As I was bringing my right arm

  outwards and ready to pull in, I noticed something in the bed. I look

  longer to make sure I see it correctly. I see the silhouette figure

  of a person's body shape extruding out of the blanket. They seem to

  be fully covered and looking away from my direction.

  I immediately freeze. There's no

  mistaking it. There's someone under my blanket. I can barely tell

  from the darkness. I chose to wait until my cramp faded out before I

  uncovered the sheet. Meanwhile, I'm constantly keeping my eye on this

  person. The moment it moves an inch, I'm getting up and packing my

  bags, ready to go to another country with a same-day flight ticket.

  After what felt like ten solid

  minutes, I calmed down a little. The cramp was completely gone now. I

  checked my phone and saw it was only four-thirty in the morning, the

  sun would start rising soon.

  'Since I'll be staying awake

  either way, might as well search up how to wake myself faster,' is

  what I think to myself before I open the browser and one of the top

  news is a virus break out. It wrote, "What's Going On With The

  World? New Virus Instantly Spreads The Globe!"

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  'What kinda of shitty clickbait is

  this?' I think to myself. I thought I set my browser settings to not

  provide any degenerate news sources. I bring my phone closer to head

  the bottom text, "Official Publication Written by the Foreign

  Press Center of Japan." Why is the foreign press writing a title

  like this? The thought that government agencies are attempting to use

  the new generation's dumb marketing tactics made me cringe a little.

  'Well, I'll just read this article

  later in the morning,' " is what I thought to myself.

  I decided to finally uncover the

  blanket so I would get up early.

  In one big swing, I pull out

  the entire blanket and see... a woman? A NAKED WOMAN?! "What the

  hell?!" I yelled while tripping backward from the sudden shock.

  'Why is there a naked woman in my

  bed?!' I think to myself. 'I don't remember going to a party or

  anything, wait, I never go to parties or get drunk!' I snapped back

  up from the floor after I heard my mom's voice coming from the

  hallway. "Yuuji! Are you okay? Why did you scream all of a

  sudden?" 'Mom? Now?' I hear my mom's feet hit the floor from her

  bedroom and start walking towards my room.

  I quickly throw my blanket back on

  the naked woman. I immediately noticed something was off. Besides the

  fact that there was a naked lady in my bed, she had attributes

  similar to me! Light brown straight hair, sharp nose, round face with

  average cheekbones. What stood out was the longer hair, bigger lips,

  eyelashes, and somewhere around D-cup breast size!

  I quickly turn around and stand in front of the bed in an attempt to

  hide the woman from my mom. The only door in my room bursts open.

  "Yuuji, are you OK?" My mom barges in the door. I stare at

  her speechless, pointing my finger toward her head, "Your hair,"

  I murmur. "What are you talking about?" Mom says as she

  whips her hair in front of her and immediately starts to notice her

  hair has turned into some sort of crystallized strands that also bend

  just like normal hair. The reflection of the sun on her hair makes it

  glow a soothing sky-bluish color.

  Her hands start shaking a little.

  "Is this real? What is this?" She looks awfully distressed.

  I also calm myself down, "I don't know what's been happening, I

  think something happened when we were asleep."

  "Like a disease?" She

  says as she fiddles with her hair.

  "I'm not sure."

  "Well, what happened to you?

  You were screaming just now, but I don't see anything weird on you."

  Immediately after her question, a scream started in the other room,

  my brother's room. Kazu.

  "What the fuck is this?!"

  We hear as we see Kazu on his bed, examining his new, rock-shaped

  body. His skin, no, his muscles perhaps, were all made of

  light-orange rocks and a couple of stones poking outside. Mom steps

  forward to hug him, "Oh God, my dear Kazu." He used to be

  around 5'9", now he seemed about 8 feet tall at least. All the

  clothes he was wearing were ripped except for his boxers.

  "Are you freaking"— his voice became more

  tearful,"—kidding me?" I began to release tears after the

  situation dawned on me, 'We will probably never go back to how we

  were before.'

  I think back to what I read on my

  phone, about that article from the foreign press, "I think it's

  happening to more people it's not just us." I tried to explain.

  "Like a virus, but it turns people into different stuff. I saw a

  news article when I woke up. But I didn't read it, just the title,"

  I spew out while cover my face with my arm to wipe off tears.

  When he saw me starting to sob, he reassured me, "Hey, don't

  cry, at least the rocks on my head don't make me look smooth-out

  bald." I don't know how he could stay calm like that. If I were

  him, I would be going insane.

  They will start to ask me about my power, and

  I'm not exactly sure what it is, but anyone with a brain could

  connect what the woman sleeping in my bed has to do with this

  new Could

  it be that my ability allows me to pull hot ladies? Maybe this

  ability thing doesn't sound too bad after all.

  A moment later, all of our phones start blaring out, "This is a

  public service announcement, an unnatural phenomenon has

  occurred, please stay inside and await further orders. I repeat. This

  is not a drill. This is a public service annou"—Kazu shuts it

  off.

  "Hey, if this isn't just happening to us, then what about the

  rest of the world?" Kazu asks the most important question in

  this situation. "No one is going outside right now!" Mom

  declares, wiping her tears out.

  I'm getting a sense that something

  big is about to happen. The air is fuming with the promise of

  interesting things to come.