Chapter 534

The package arrived unceremoniously, dropped off with the regular mail. Anika, a woman of forty-two years with a penchant for solitary walks along Amsterdam's canals, didn't remember ordering anything. The brown paper wrapping bore no return address, only her name and address printed in stark, black ink.

Inside, cushioned by a bed of bubble wrap, were earphones. Not the sleek, wireless kind advertised everywhere, but older ones, the type with a long, thin cord ending in a jack. They were black, the plastic a bit dull, as if they'd spent years gathering dust in some forgotten drawer.

Anika held them, feeling a sudden unease. Something about their ordinariness, their sheer lack of pretense, felt off. There were so many high-quality earphone providers, it struck her strange for her to acquire cheap, low-quality ones. She tried to shake the negativity as just another bad emotion.

That evening, feeling unusually drained after a particularly long day managing the customer complaints inbox for a medium-sized online retailer. The weariness she experiences weighs deeply in her thoughts and limbs.

Almost as a joke, thinking perhaps they contained a podcast or audiobook she didn't notice. Anika plugged the earphones into her phone. It seems silly even for her.

Silence. Then, a voice. Not speaking words, but something closer to understanding. A current of raw energy flowed through her and filled her entirely, a sudden surge of power, both exhilarating and slightly terrifying.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, tearing the earphones out. Her heart thrashed. She felt strangely energized, every sense heightened, as though a gray film that had been obstructing things and making them difficult for far too long suddenly had lifted off the world.

Anika tossed the earphones onto her kitchen table, dismissing the experience. It must have been some bizarre placebo effect, coupled with her own fatigue. Her body felt drained enough and sleep came with ease.

The next day, however, the feeling remained. She woke up before her alarm, bursting with energy she hadn't known for years. Her usually frustrating commute felt like a game, she effortlessly navigated crowded streets and overflowing trains.

At work, where before she struggled with a heavy caseload of complaints, the negativity normally expressed didn't affect her. Everything clicked with unusual ease. Words came as if spoken by some otherworldly muse. Solutions became immediately obvious to her.

Anika's boss, a perpetually stressed-out man named Pieter, noticed the change immediately. "Anika, you're on fire today! Whatever you're drinking, get a water cooler of it to give everyone."

"Just a good night's sleep," Anika responded, forcing a small smile. She felt a prickle of guilt, an underlying anxiety beneath the unfamiliar wave of capability. She hadn't forgotten her earlier usage of the earphones.

Later, walking home along a darkening canal, the urge grew strong. Just a little boost, she told herself. She needed it to face the endless household chores, the dishes piled high in the sink, the laundry she had put off for almost a week.

She stopped in a darkened nook with her hands shaking from emotional strife. Anika plugged in the earphones. That same surge returned, intensified, like downing ten espressos at once, but without the nervousness or nausea. She felt limitless.

She tackled every single chore in record time. She didn't stop and scrubbed the tiles, rearranged her books by color, and even finally fixed that broken drawer in her bedroom. All of it without an ounce of mental friction.

But as she finished, another sensation crept up. It was different. A deep, bitter cold that spread through her. A cold that made her skin itch with dread, making her wonder why she was so exhausted all the time beforehand.

She pulled out the earphones, staring at them. The cold intensified. The apartment, usually comfortably warmed, seemed to drop degrees even without a change on her heating devices.

"What are you?" she whispered, her breath clouding before her eyes. The feeling was no longer that of dread alone. It was deeper.

Days turned into weeks. The pattern emerged. A daily hit of power through the earphones for increasing weariness. Then came chills. But without her headphones, even simple everyday actions were too much for her to handle alone.

Anika felt dependent. Hooked. The enhanced focus, the sharpened senses, the sheer boundless ability—she couldn't imagine going back to the old, slow, frustrating way of life.

Yet the cold never left. It deepened. Her skin, at times, felt almost translucent, a delicate web of blue veins more prominent each time. The world seemed a degree duller and darker without it.

She found herself unable to stay in the cold and bundled. More than usual. Multiple sweaters, blankets in rooms far from ice, and nothing. It became a second nature.

She tried researching. Finding an address for her mysterious earbud purchase. Finding someone that sent it. Anyone.

But the internet offered nothing. Searches for similar accounts produced no related results, all she got were the advertisements for the highest-quality ear pieces. Nothing real.

One cold, drizzly evening, a colleague, Saskia, a woman with a gentle demeanor who she enjoyed, invited Anika out for drinks after work. "You seem… withdrawn lately, Anika. Something's up," she said, touching Anika's arm lightly.

Anika recoiled, her whole body clenched in unexpected pain, feeling it from such a basic contact, the area throbbing. It hurt immensely. Saskia drew back her hand, alarmed by the contact as well.

"Are you okay?" Saskia asked, worried about her. She seemed more distant with each passing moment. It wasn't at all the character Anika previously showed.

"I…I'm just a bit cold," Anika managed, forcing a shaky laugh. She wanted to confide, to explain, but the words stuck in her throat, trapped by some intangible pressure.

The cold made things far more difficult. More than they had been already, now they seem a degree more impossible.

Anika refused Saskia's offer. She couldn't risk social contact anymore. What if she hurt someone accidentally? She left work as fast as possible with as much tact.

That night, back in her freezing apartment, the need was more overwhelming than before. She put on her earbuds before any moment for thought can set in. The coldness, once an undesirable reaction, has suddenly become a craving.

It was even stronger. She felt the cold flow to the center of her being, as if her heart and stomach had been carved out of ice entirely, yet she also felt she had achieved even higher powers than she realized were capable.

But this time, something else happened. As the energy pulsed, she began to feel more connected with things she shouldn't. She saw shapes moving and the contours of objects. She saw things far and near all at once.

A man walking the alley below, hands thrust in the pockets of his coat and an empty gun in hand. She could tell by his face he hadn't eaten for a while, as he held in coughs.

The spider, slowly weaving an intricate pattern and feasting in a corner near her ceiling. She could almost smell her prey's blood.

The slow, silent decay of the wood of her aging table, the billions of bacteria. She felt sick from these things even being close, things so minuscule. It repulsed her on a whole different degree.

With the details came disgust at being aware of things like breath. Even as her body worked. Things she had to have for herself, became utterly disgusting, when amplified.

The energy faded with extreme speed, taking her out of those nightmarish events as she nearly heaves onto the floor from her chair, bringing back that deeper cold. Anika pulled out the earphones, shaking now with dread.

The feeling of extreme nausea began creeping in as well. As if her insides were twisting. Her teeth rattled together as she shivered intensely from chills and nausea.

It had given her something. Something terrible and unwanted, even from a moment of desperation, this has all made things impossibly worse in ways she couldn't bear before.

Over the next few weeks, this new, grotesque 'gift' persisted and intensified even if just slowly and naturally, with or without her earphones. It would seem the powers are lasting just long enough to bring pain.

She saw the minute processes of decay, illness, bacteria, germs. It had always existed everywhere around her. But she had, in times before now, happily remained unaware. She was forced to be at full sensitivity to the horror and never return.

Walking down the street was torturous, as every interaction would expose germs, disease, pain. Every single thing seemed filthy in all of these experiences that amplified everything too strongly.

Eating became a ritual, obsessively and violently sterilizing every piece of food with strong, medical-grade supplies. And every moment afterwards as well.

Her once cozy apartment transformed into an abomination. The unseen microorganisms, dust mites, bacteria cultures. It drove her into an obsessive cycle of sterilization.

Sleep brought only worse horrors. The visions of her own bodily processes and that of the world beyond—skin cells being discarded, blood being drained, and the invisible world made obvious.

Her job had quickly been let go to avoid having to touch things and risk touching a dangerous illness—though she wouldn't even step foot near the building without proper medical-grade tools.

She isolated. Anika barely slept in this horrible mess of things. No food could be ingested or used to heal in fear of contracting a deadly plague.

One freezing, quiet, still morning—even colder than any moment of her life prior—Anika saw a solution, through sheer, tired delusion. It all was connected, this she realized in horror.

It was the source. It has amplified it by giving that power in the first place. The problem has remained for one horrible moment after.

The energy came from the earphones, she realized in agony, her body shaking terribly now as her heart seemed unable to hold anymore coldness without the warmth, this was it.

With agonizing effort, driven by this desperation as well as dread, she grabbed the earphones, her teeth knocking against themselves and with blood flowing out of them.

And before her hands—or rather stumps, it seems, by how raw it looked—could be warmed. Anika jammed the earphone's audio-jack into the cold electrical socket of her barren apartment wall.

She smiled, finally able to relax for more than one, terrible second of fear and despair. Her body didn't ache so deeply from that extreme frost anymore.

Everything has become, slowly at first but ever-increasing, warmer.