The hammering inside my head dragged me back to consciousness like a rusty anchor scraping against concrete. I cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it. The pale morning light filtering through Martin's thin blue curtains felt like needles jabbing straight into my brain.

Christ. What did I drink last night?

I tried to roll over on the couch, but something felt... off. My limbs moved with this strange, weightless quality, like they were floating in water instead of connected to bone and muscle. When I finally managed to sit up, my legs dangled over the edge of the couch with an alien lightness that made my stomach lurch.

The apartment around me looked the same: Martin's sparse Altbau flat with its high ceilings and that persistent draft that always seemed to find its way under the windows. The familiar creak of the old floorboards from the apartment above. The distant hum of the U-Bahn rumbling beneath Kastanienallee. All of it exactly as it had been for the past month of my life camping on this damn couch.

But I felt like I was observing it all from behind glass.

I flexed my fingers. They responded to my commands, sure, but with this unsettling delay, like there was interference in the signal between my brain and my body. When I tried to stand, my knees nearly buckled: not from weakness, exactly, but from this bizarre sensation that my legs had been replaced with overcooked linguine.

"Get it together, Alan," I muttered, but even my voice sounded wrong. Thinner somehow.

Through the window, Berlin carried on with its usual morning rhythm. I could hear the familiar clatter of the delivery trucks on Oderberger Straße, the distant chatter of commuters grabbing coffee from the Späti down the street. People with jobs to go to. Lives that made sense. A world that operated according to logical, predictable rules.

Unlike whatever the hell was happening to me.

Maybe this was what rock bottom actually felt like. Not the dramatic crash I'd expected when artificial intelligence finally made my job obsolete, or when Sarah served me divorce papers, or when I'd packed my life into two suitcases and moved to Martin's couch. Maybe rock bottom was this gradual dissolution, this sense of becoming untethered from your own existence.

Forty-four years old and reduced to this: squatting in a friend's apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, unemployed, divorced, and apparently now suffering from some kind of existential crisis so severe that I couldn't even trust my own body to feel familiar.

The city outside continued its morning symphony. Somewhere, people were building lives, making decisions that mattered, moving forward with purpose. And here I was, a ghost haunting someone else's couch, trying to figure out why my own skin felt like it didn't fit.

~oO🐺Oo~

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift backward through the fog. Right. Last night. Not a bar... that would've required actual human interaction, and I'd been avoiding that particular form of torture lately.

The Späti. That's where I'd gone.

The memory surfaced slowly, like debris floating up from a shipwreck. I'd shuffled down Kastanienallee around eleven, hands shoved deep in my jacket pockets, past the clusters of twenty-somethings spilling out of the trendy bars with their craft cocktails and their certainty that life would always be this uncomplicated.

The Turkish guy behind the counter at the corner Späti had given me that look again. The one which said he recognized a fellow exile when he saw one.

"Guten Abend," he'd said, but his eyes held the universal language of men who'd ended up somewhere they never planned to be.

Three bottles of Berliner Pilsner. A bag of those god-awful curry-flavored chips that somehow tasted like regret. Some chocolate that I'd eaten standing right there in the store, like the dignified middle-aged professional I'd once been.

But after that? The walk back to Martin's place felt hazy, like trying to remember a dream that kept slipping away the harder I grasped for it.

The memory snagged on something else. A shape. A presence.

Not on Kastanienallee proper but just off it, down one of those narrow side streets where the lamplight never seems to reach the cobblestones. She was there: leaning against the wall, one heel crooked at an odd angle, her breath clouding faintly in the chill night air. Alone.

At first glance, I thought she was just another Berliner, a few too many drinks past midnight. Christ knows I’d seen enough of them stumbling out of bars. But there was something different about her, even through my haze. The way she held herself, like the alcohol hadn’t stripped away her composure, only loosened it.

“Sie sind okay?” I’d asked, my German mangled by fatigue and pilsner.

She turned her head, slowly, eyes finding mine with a clarity that didn’t match her swaying frame. Dark eyes. Sharp. Too sharp for someone this drunk.

I hovered, awkward. Offering help when I could barely keep myself upright felt ridiculous, but leaving her there didn’t sit right either.

“I, uh… I live there.” I gestured vaguely across the street, up to the third floor. The window with Martin’s ridiculous blue curtains billowing like a flag of surrender.

“If you need to sit down for a minute… or I can call you a taxi… Freunde, maybe?” The words felt clumsy, spilling out in fragments. My hands twitched for a moment, then fell uselessly to my sides.

I caught myself staring at the curtains again, at the ridiculous, billowing blue. Why do I even care? I muttered something under my breath... verdammt… before realizing she was watching me.

Her lips curved into the faintest smile, not amusement exactly, but something close. She didn’t answer right away, just let the silence spool out, her gaze holding me like she was reading something written behind my eyes.

And then, finally, she spoke: voice low, husky, touched with an accent I couldn’t place. “Maybe… just a place to sit, ja.”

~oO🐺Oo~

Somehow, we made it up three flights of creaking Altbau stairs without either of us collapsing.

A small miracle.

Inside, the place looked exactly like what it was: a crash pad for a man in freefall. The couch… my couch, was a jumble of blankets, yesterday’s laundry, and the carcasses of takeaway containers I’d been meaning to throw out for, oh, three days running. Martin’s absence didn’t help. He was in Munich all week for work, leaving me with the illusion of independence and the reality of a mess.

“Sorry about the state of things,” I muttered, already scooping up an empty Currywurst box and shoving a pile of laundry onto the chair in the corner. The performance of tidying rather than the actual act.

"Alles klar," I said under my breath, though it was anything but.

She didn’t comment. Just lowered herself carefully onto the couch as if she’d been here a hundred times before, her dark hair catching the dull glow of the streetlight sneaking in through those damn blue curtains.

“Blanket?” I asked, and without waiting for an answer, draped Martin’s scratchy wool throw over her shoulders. It smelled faintly of dust and the stale cigarette smoke he never admitted to.

She accepted it with a small nod, eyes following me as I shuffled into the kitchenette. I filled a glass with tap water: Berlin’s famously hard stuff, but at least it was cold, and brought it over like I was hosting royalty.

“Water,” I said. Then, after a pause, “Or… Bier?” I gestured vaguely toward the three green bottles sweating on the table. My big act of generosity, offering to share the last of my cheap Berliner Pilsner with a stranger who looked like she belonged in a private lounge somewhere, not in this wreck of an Altbau living room.

Her mouth curved slightly at that, the same faint, unreadable smile she’d given me on the street. She took the water first, lifting it with slender fingers that made my own hands feel like clumsy tools.

I sat down across from her, suddenly aware of the silence in the room. The hum of the old fridge, the occasional rattle of pipes in the walls, and below us, the faint vibration of the tram rolling down Kastanienallee.

For the first time in months, I wasn’t thinking about Sarah, or my job, or the gnawing emptiness of forty-four wasted years. Just her, sitting there in my borrowed life, wrapped in Martin’s blanket, as if she’d been conjured out of the night for reasons I couldn’t begin to guess.

She set the glass down on the table without breaking eye contact. Not a word wasted. Just that look: level, unhurried, as if she was taking stock of me the way a jeweler studies a flawed stone.

“You live here?” Her voice carried that husky undertone, low and deliberate. The kind of voice that could make “pass the salt” sound like a confession.

“Sort of.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “My kumpel’s place. Martin. He’s in Munich. I’m just… keeping the couch warm. Sozusagen”

Her smile deepened, not mockery, but close. “You don’t strike me as someone who belongs on a sofa. Nicht wirklich.”

I gave a short, humorless laugh. “Trust me, I don’t strike myself as much of anything these days.”

“Ach.” The sound slipped out before I could stop it. I looked away, catching the pale line of her collarbone before dragging my gaze elsewhere.

She leaned in, just slightly, the blanket slipping from one shoulder. The movement was small, almost accidental, but deliberate enough that my eyes caught on the pale line of her collarbone before I dragged them away.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” she said, as if she already knew my history, as if the mess of my last year was written plainly across my forehead. “I see… strength. A man who’s lost his way, vielleicht. Aber nicht verloren.”

It was absurd, the ease with which her words slid under my skin. Sarah had spent years dismantling me with criticisms that cut sharp and deep, but here was a stranger, wrapped in Martin’s old blanket, telling me I wasn’t the ghost I felt like, and I wanted to believe her.

I reached for one of the beers and held it out. “You sure you don’t want… ’n Bier?”

She took it from my hand, her fingers brushing mine just long enough to send a ripple of heat up my arm. She didn’t drink immediately. Instead, she tipped the bottle lightly toward me, as if toasting without words.

The silence stretched again, but now it was charged, electric. The hum of the fridge, the faint clatter from the street below, and between us, a current I couldn’t deny.

You’re kind,” she said softly. It sounded less like a compliment and more like a statement of fact. “Kind men are selten, weißt du?”

I wanted to protest— to tell her she’d gotten me wrong, that I was no knight in shining armor, that I could barely manage my own wreck of a life. But her gaze held me there, pinned and oddly comforted, and the words refused to come.

She tipped the bottle back, took a slow swallow, and set it down with deliberate care. Then she shifted: not much, just enough to close the small distance between us on the couch. The blanket slipped further, pooling around her waist.

“You look like a man who hasn’t been touched in a long time,” she murmured. No judgment, just observation, like she was noting the weather. “Zu lange.”

The words landed heavier than they should have. My throat tightened. I wanted to deny it, to throw up some half-hearted joke, but the truth sat there, raw and undeniable.

Her hand brushed against mine on the cushion. Not an accident. The lightest pressure, but it held me captive more effectively than a grip.

“I shouldn’t…” The protest died in my mouth as her gaze met mine again. Those dark eyes: patient and certain, made resistance feel not just impossible, but irrelevant.

She leaned in, and I felt her breath first, warm against my skin, before her lips touched mine. Soft, unhurried, tasting faintly of the pilsner we’d shared. It wasn’t a demand; it was an invitation. And God help me, I answered it.

The blanket shifted again as she angled closer, her body aligning with mine. My hand found the curve of her shoulder, then the slope of her back: tentative like I was handling something both fragile and dangerous.

When she finally pulled back, just an inch, her lips still hovering near mine, she whispered, “See? Nicht ganz verloren.”

The words sent a shiver through me deeper than the kiss itself. Because in that moment, with her wrapped in Martin’s blanket and me half-drunk and broken, I almost believed her.

~oO🐺Oo~

I hadn’t been touched like that in… God, almost two decades. With Sarah, yes, but those last years were routine, mechanical. Tender sometimes, but dulled. And then nothing. Nothing but the absence. I’d half convinced myself I was finished in that way, like a switch had been flicked off permanently.

But her hand now: warm, soft, deliberate, reminded me that wasn’t true. A shock ran through me, sharp as static. It drew a laugh out of me, ridiculous, caught somewhere between nerves and astonishment.

So this is what I’ve been missing all this time.

I forced myself not to close my eyes. I wanted to see. To catalogue every detail, as if proof would slip away otherwise. The pale polish chipped on her thumbnail. The faint pulse at her wrist brushes against me. Even the smell, perfume layered over wine, was intoxicating in its own way, foreign and familiar at once.

She leaned in slightly, her hair brushing my jaw. I caught the faintest streak of copper under the lamplight and the curve of her lips as she watched me. I wondered if she knew what this meant: what it felt like, after years of drought, to suddenly be drowning in sensation.

My body responded faster than I wanted, embarrassingly fast, but instead of shame, there was this rush of joy. Childish almost. Like discovering something forbidden. My hips twitched up to meet her hand before I could stop myself, and the couch groaned under us, springs protesting. I should’ve been self-conscious. Instead, I laughed again, shaky, raw.

Her body was right there, close enough to taste. And I did. I leaned in, pressed my mouth to the smooth curve of her throat, feeling the heat of her pulse against my lips. The scent of her perfume mixed with the sharp smell of wine on her skin, and I wanted more.

I let my mouth wander down, pulling at the neckline of her blouse. The skin of her chest was soft, yielding, and when I closed my lips around her nipple, the sound she made: half gasp, half laugh, went straight through me. I sucked gently, then harder, pinched the other between my fingers, testing, relearning what a woman’s body could do under my touch.

Every nerve in me was alive. The rough weave of the blanket bunched under my free hand. The bitter taste of beer lingered on my tongue, chased now by the salt of her skin. Her breath, warm and uneven, fanned across the top of my head.

I kissed lower, across her stomach, feeling the muscles tense beneath my mouth. It was absurd, almost comical: me… forty-four, kissing her belly like some teenager finally permitted to explore. But I couldn’t stop. I was greedy.

By the time my lips brushed between her thighs, she was already shifting, opening, as if inviting me in. I hesitated for half a second… twenty years since I’d done this, what if I’d forgotten how?

But instinct took over. The first taste of her was dizzying. Warm, slick, alive. I licked slowly, experimentally, and the sound she made told me all I needed.

Her hand, the one that had been stroking me, paused for a moment, then tangled in my hair, pulling me closer. I gave myself over to it, kissing, licking, testing every reaction, every breathy sigh. My own arousal pulsed in time with her shifting hips, but I wasn’t rushing anymore. I was learning her, cataloguing her. Relishing every flicker of response like data points in an experiment I didn’t want to end.

She shifted suddenly, deliberately, straddling me. Her thighs pressed against mine, hot and unyielding, and my hands instinctively found their way to her hips, trying to anchor myself as she leaned closer. The blanket bunched around us, a poor shield against the heat radiating from her.

Her hands traced over my chest, slow, teasing, almost knowing exactly how to make me shiver. Every nerve I thought had gone dormant woke up in a rush: the brush of her fingers across my collarbone, the teasing pressure on my nipples, the subtle grind of her hips. I’d forgotten what it was like to feel this alive, this immediate.

Her lips found mine again, insistent, commanding, and I kissed back like a man starved. She nipped, whispered against me, her voice husky, low… “Feel that? That’s you. Nicht kämpfen.” The sound of her voice sent a jolt through me I didn’t even know I could feel anymore.

She leaned back just slightly, letting me follow her movement with my lips, hands roaming her waist, her stomach, teasing along the edge of her blouse. Then she lowered herself, guiding me, letting my mouth find her again, and I realized how greedy I’d become, how every inch of her sent sparks up my spine.

Her thighs tightened around me, pressing, teasing, controlling the pace, and I was helpless in the best way. My mind tried to catalog everything: the warmth, the scent, the soft skin under my fingertips, but it failed, drowned out by the sensations racing through me. Every kiss, every lick, every shift of her body made me gasp, laugh, groan: sounds I hadn’t made in years, sounds I’d forgotten I could make.

She leaned forward, whispering in my ear, breath hot and intoxicating: “You remember now, don’t you? How it feels to want... ja?”

I nodded before I even realized it, utterly consumed, my hands clutching her as if holding her closer could somehow capture the moment forever.

And then she moved with a faint, deliberate roll, her body pressing tighter against mine, every nerve ending on fire. I thought I might break apart, each motion and touch sending shocks through me that I’d long thought impossible. I had forgotten this feeling. Forgotten that desire could be so immediate, so overwhelming.

Her movements became almost hypnotic, riding me with a subtle rhythm that I didn’t try to control. Every shift of her hips, every press of her body against mine, sent sparks racing up my spine. My hands explored greedily, memorizing the curve of her waist, the soft swell of her breasts, the tautness of her stomach.

She leaned down, brushing her lips across my collarbone, sucking softly, and I groaned involuntarily. My mind tried to analyze it, to catalog what was happening, but it was useless. The sensations were overwhelming, too immediate to think through. I was unmoored, and it was glorious.

Her eyes caught mine, dark and gleaming, full of amusement and something that felt dangerously like knowing. “You like this, ja?” she murmured, and I couldn’t stop myself from nodding, even as a laugh slipped out, breathless and shaky.

“Yes,” I whispered, “Christ, yes.”

Every nerve ending was alive, tingling, buzzing. I kissed her breasts, tracing the slope, licking and sucking, letting myself be greedy, letting myself feel every reaction she gave. Her soft sounds of encouragement: moans, quiet breaths, the subtle tilt of her head. All were addictive, sending me higher with each touch.

I lowered my lips to her stomach, nipping gently, feeling the tension in her body respond to me. My hands pressed into her thighs, guiding, exploring, and then… she shifted again, leaning closer, pressing me into her with a movement that was part command, part invitation.

The heat built faster than I thought possible. I could feel myself unraveling, every touch, every kiss, every whisper pressing me closer to the edge. My breaths came fast, shallow, my chest rising and falling under her weight, my hands clutching her like a lifeline.

And then it happened. The orgasm rolled over me in a shockwave: bright, consuming, and utterly unrestrained. My body tensed, shuddered, and trembled against her. Laughter, groans, and gasps spilled out uncontrollably. I felt everything at once: relief, joy, disbelief, a raw, childish pleasure I’d forgotten.

She moved with me, grounding me, guiding the shivers and tremors as they washed through. My mind was half fog, half ecstasy, cataloging only the vital details: her warmth, her scent, the sound of her soft laugh as she watched me unravel, the feel of her body pressing close, the heat of the room.

When it passed, I was trembling, breathless, heart racing. My arms were around her without thinking, holding onto the moment. I could barely form a coherent thought: only the simple, overwhelming truth: I am alive.

She shifted slightly, settling beside me, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Don’t get too used to this, ja?” she said lightly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes glinting with something I couldn’t place.

~oO🐺Oo~

I woke to the weight of my own body pressing down like a lead blanket. Every muscle ached, every joint complained, and the pounding in my skull had migrated to somewhere deep, behind my eyes.

I forced myself upright again... groaning, and blinked at the coffee table. Empty bottles, snack wrappers, chocolate wrappers… remnants of indulgence and oblivion. My phone lay face up, screen lighting the room with a harsh, artificial brightness.

10:22 a.m.

My eyes flicked to the date. I blinked.

No way.

Not the next morning. Two days later.

I rubbed my eyes. Must be a mistake. Hangover-induced delirium, some cruel trick my brain was playing.

I checked again. No mistake. Somewhere between my last memory I could grasp and this moment, two days had simply… vanished.

The apartment looked the same as it did before: the same high ceilings, the same thin light filtering through Martin’s blue curtains, the same chaos I’d shunted to the side like some feeble attempt at tidiness. Nothing had changed. And yet, everything had.

I sank back against the couch, staring at the empty bottles like they held the answers.

Something felt… off. The air pressed down heavier than usual, sticky, thick, like the apartment had grown overnight. My limbs felt sluggish, foreign— the edges of the room wavered, blurring in a way that made me question if I was still upright or just imagining it.

I rubbed at my face, grimacing. My hands… they felt wrong. Smooth, clammy, almost slippery against my skin.

The room tilted as I closed my eyes, the memory of her face flashing again: too vivid, too near, too unsettlingly clear. The harder I tried to anchor it in reality, to dismiss it as a dream, the less certain I became of what had truly happened. A cold tendril of dread began to unfurl in my gut.

I forced myself upright, ignoring the violent protest of my wobbling legs. Each step toward the hallway felt heavier than it should, as if moving underwater, through thick, resistant air. My bare feet sank slightly into the rug, toes brushing the woven fibers, as I made my way toward the narrow bathroom at the end of the hall. A desperate march.

~oO🐺Oo~

The bathroom door was slightly ajar. I shuffled closer, each step a careful negotiation with my wobbling legs, and my heart decided it was a percussion instrument.

And then… movement. In the mirror.

A figure.

Jesus Christ!

My chest tightened, my brain screeched, who the hell…

A girl.

I froze. Not a kid. Not someone my size. Somewhere around nineteen, twenty maybe, 5’4”, all wiry softness and youth I hadn’t seen in decades. Narrow shoulders, slight waist, small hands. Her dirty blonde hair caught the light, muted sheen, brushing her shoulders. The hazel-brown eyes… huge, like they’d grown to fill that smaller face. Heart-shaped. Cheeks soft. Lips full.

Even her chest… modest, yes, but alive in a way that made my stomach twist. And her legs, lean and loose, moving with a spring that my body had long forgotten.

Wide-eyed, she stared at me. Shock mirrored in her gaze. Intruder? Burglar? Some prank?

I spun around. Empty hall. Nothing.

Slowly, I turned back. And there she was.

Mirroring me.

I jerked my hands up. She did the same. I stepped forward. So did she. My mind scrambled for logic. There had to be a rational explanation. Maybe I’d passed out, dreamt it, some kind of neurological glitch. But every subtle tremor, every shift in my stance… she followed exactly.

I swallowed. My throat dry. My hands felt clammy, foreign. My body kept twitching, checking, testing… and with every movement, she did the same.

I could feel the absurdity clawing at me. Nothing about this makes sense.

But there she was.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again. Same. Same girl. Mirroring me.

Okay. Think, Al. Logical explanation. Could be a trick of the light, reflection bouncing off some glass in the hallway, maybe a hallucination from whatever combination of beer and whatever the hell else I’d ingested.

Right?

I raised a hand slowly, testing, like some idiot scientist conducting a delicate experiment. She did the same. Step forward. Same. Tilt my head. Same. My pulse jumped, a jackhammer in my chest.

My mind ran through possibilities. Twin? Impossible. Intruder hiding somewhere? No. Everything checks out. Apartment empty. Hallway clear. Windows locked. Not a sound outside except the distant hum of Berlin at work.

I swallowed. Hands shaking slightly, I reached toward the mirror, fingertips brushing the smooth glass. She… moved with me. Not like a shadow. Not like a reflection distorted. Every twitch, every subtle shift… identical.

Shock. Awe. A breathless, gnawing bewilderment. I sank to the edge of the bathtub, my mouth open, a dry gasp. The room seemed smaller, the air thicker. Dust, faint scent of old beer, the hum of the fridge… it all felt suddenly unreal. A cheap stage set for a horror play.

And there, in the mirror, she… my double, my impossible self, stared back. Unblinking. Unyielding. Alive.

A tremor ran through me. My own body, once familiar, felt utterly foreign. Hands shaking, legs unsteady, chest tight with a cold dread.

I leaned closer, searching for a seam, a trick of light, anything I could undo. Nothing. Nothing except her. Except me. Except this.

A dull ringing began at the back of my skull, faint at first, then building, a siren song nudging me toward something I wasn’t ready to face.

Then: a tiny, impossible detail. The curve of my waist, the delicate line of my collarbone, hair brushing past her shoulders: details I shouldn’t have known, shouldn’t have felt, but had.

Shouldn’t have…

I recoiled, stumbling back. Mouth open. Chest heaving. Memories scattered, distant, as if waking from someone else’s life, a life that no longer belonged to me.

Something had changed. Permanent. Irreversible.

I sank to the floor, my back against the cold, damp wall, eyes fixed on the mirror with a frantic, desperate intensity. Terror, revulsion, a bottomless disbelief. They swirled in my chest, a maelstrom of unreality. And beneath it all, one thought hammered through everything else, raw and agonizing:

This isn’t me.

From the shadows of the small bathroom, I felt it… a presence, watching, patient, impossibly aware. Not a new beginning. Not understanding. But a cold, absolute ending.

My life had ended. And in its place, this…