You see, James always started his morning with some kind of noise, because that's just what happens when you're stuck living in a crumbling old studio apartment in a shitty little town nobody with any sense would choose to call home.
Sometimes it was the neighbor's mangy mutt barking its fucking head off, other times it was some drunk asshole on the street yelling at his girlfriend or his dealer or the sky itself, and occasionally it was the couple upstairs going at it so hard you could practically time their rhythm through the paper-thin ceiling.
The whole usual nonsense.
But that particular morning, the noise wasn't the same soundtrack he'd learned to tune out over the years.
That morning… it was gunshots.
A loud crack that sliced clean through the haze of sleep still clinging to his brain.
He lay there for a second with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to convince himself it was a car backfiring or maybe kids fucking around with firecrackers even though the sun was barely up and nobody with half a brain sets off fireworks at dawn.
So he yawned, dragged a hand across his face, and rolled off the mattress that sagged in the middle like it wanted to swallow him whole every night.
His loose gray sweatpants he'd slept in immediately slid halfway down his hips, almost flashing the empty room his dick. He grabbed the waistband with one hand, hitching them up just enough to stay decent, and shuffled toward the window.
Nobody could, or should blame him for not jumping straight to the worst-case scenario. I mean, this neighborhood was loud, annoying as all hell most days, full of petty drama and small-time bullshit, but it was home.
People argued, dogs barked, cars with busted exhausts roared past at three a.m., but nobody got shot.
Not really.
Not the kind of gunfire that meant actual fucking business.
So his half-awake brain wasn't screaming holy shit someone's dying out there. It was grumbling what the fuck is wrong with people this early?
He hooked two fingers under the rusty window sash, yanked it up with that familiar metallic screech that could wake the dead, and stuck his head out into the cool morning air just enough to see what the hell was going on.
Then he yanked his head right the fuck back inside and slammed the window shut hard enough that the last surviving pane rattled in its frame.
Holy. Fucking. Shit!
He stood there blinking, heart suddenly slamming against his ribs and scrubbed both hands down his face, trying to wipe the sleep away and maybe wipe the crazy away too, telling himself he was hallucinating because of the batch of whatever the fuck he smoked last night.
Then he sucked in a breath, counted to three and cracked the window open again—just a peep, just enough to peek without committing his whole head to whatever madness was waiting.
And it was the same fucking view.
Same impossible, batshit insane view.
The street he'd looked at every goddamn morning for the last four years wasn't there anymore.
The cracked sidewalk choked with weeds, the busted streetlight that always blinked, the corner bodega with the half-dead neon beer sign buzzing in the window, the row of tired brick buildings—all of it gone.
Wiped clean.
In their place was neon.
Miles of the stuff.
Towering black-glass spires stabbed into a sky the color of old bruises, purple and bruised orange bleeding together. Holographic billboards the size of city blocks drifted overhead, flashing promises in languages he half-recognized and ones he didn't.
People moved down there, but not like normal people.
They couldn't possibly be considered normal since half of them had chrome arms, eyes replaced with glowing red optics, and faces half-covered in pulsing circuitry.
The other half looked too perfect with shiny plastic looking skin.
And the guns. Christ, the guns.
Nobody down there seemed particularly shocked by the gunfire because everybody was fucking strapped.
James eased the window shut again, quieter this time, and backed up until his calves hit the edge of the mattress and he dropped onto it hard.
"What the actual fuck," he whispered to the empty room, his voice sounding small and shaky, nothing like the sarcastic prick he usually played for anyone who bothered listening.
He looked around at the familiar crap of his studio apartment and at least that didn't change.
The peeling paint on the walls, the single bulb dangling from a frayed cord, the mini-fridge humming and the stack of unpaid bills he'd been meaning to deal with since last month were all there.
Though, truthfully… he'd have preferred if that actually changed.
The thought—and the sheer absurdity of it all—drew a barked laugh from his lips.
"Okay. Okay, James, you finally lost your shit," he chuckled but even as the words left his mouth he knew they were bullshit.
He could still smell the burnt ozone and exhaust drifting in through the cracks around the window frame.
He could hear the distant thump of synthesized bass from some club that sure as hell hadn't existed yesterday.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was real, and it was happening right fucking now.
With an exhale that tangled into a humorless laugh, he raked a hand through his hair and let out a flat, defeated, "I'm fucked."