My name is Michael Carter, thirty-six years old, living in the small city of Springfield, Illinois.
If anyone asks when my life started to go completely off track, I would answer without hesitation:
That morning.
The morning I woke up after a night of heavy drinking… and saw a strange woman lying beside me.
But to understand why that moment nearly made me faint, we have to go back to the night before.
1
It was Friday.
A day that should have been completely normal—if Emily, my wife, hadn’t dragged a blue suitcase into the middle of the living room.
I had just come home from work.
My shirt still smelled like paper files and coffee.
I froze at the doorway.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
Emily didn’t look at me. She folded another stack of clothes and placed them into the suitcase.
“I’m leaving.”
The two words fell into the living room like a stone.
I laughed awkwardly.
“You’re joking, right?”
Emily pulled the zipper shut.
“Michael… I’m not joking.”
I walked closer.
“What happened? Yesterday we were fine.”
Emily finally looked at me. Her eyes looked exhausted, like she had been crying for hours.
“No, Michael. We haven’t been fine for a long time.”
I said nothing.
She continued:
“You’re always at work. When you come home, you drink. We talk to each other like strangers.”
I sighed.
“That’s because I have to work. We still have a mortgage.”
Emily shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I’m lonely.”
The room went silent.
I didn’t know what to say.
After a few seconds, Emily lifted the suitcase.
“Goodbye, Michael.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll stay with a friend.”
“For how long?”
Emily paused.
“I don’t know.”
The door closed.
The click was soft… but it sounded like something inside me breaking apart.
2
About an hour later, I was sitting alone in the living room.
The house felt terrifyingly quiet.
Emily’s chair was still there.
Her coffee mug was still on the table.
I picked up my phone… then put it down.
I knew if I called, Emily wouldn’t answer.
Eventually, I did the one thing I always did when life became too heavy.
I went to a bar.
The bar was called Rusty Anchor.
An old place with yellow lights, country music, and the smell of beer.
I knew the bartender there—Jack.
Jack looked up when I walked in.
“Michael? You look terrible today.”
I sat down.
“Whiskey.”
Jack poured a glass.
“What happened?”
I drank it in one shot.
“Emily left.”
Jack raised an eyebrow.
“Oh…”
I tapped the empty glass.
“Another.”
The second glass.
Then the third.
Jack said,
“You should slow down.”
I laughed.
“Tonight I don’t want to be sober.”
By around ten o’clock, I was completely drunk.
The faces in the bar started to blur.
People talked to me.
Someone laughed.
I barely remembered anything.
I only remembered a woman sitting nearby.
Blonde hair.
A leather jacket.
She asked,
“Are you okay?”
I gave a bitter smile.
“No.”
She said something else… I can’t remember.
After that, everything became foggy.
Like a film suddenly cut off.
3
When I opened my eyes, sunlight was shining directly into my face.
My head felt like it was being split open with a hammer.
I groaned.
“Damn…”
I closed my eyes for a few seconds.
Then slowly realized… something wasn’t right.
There was a smell of perfume.
Emily never wore this scent.
I opened my eyes again.
This wasn’t my bedroom.
The ceiling looked different.
The walls were gray.
I turned my head to the right.
And my heart nearly stopped.
A woman was lying beside me.
Long hair.
Her face turned toward mine.
I almost fainted.
“What the hell…”
I jumped up from the bed.
The woman woke up too.
She rubbed her eyes.
“Morning…”
Her voice was hoarse.
I stared at her.
And that was when I realized something terrifying.
I had never seen this woman in my life.
I stammered,
“W-who are you?”
She looked at me for a few seconds.
Then frowned.
“You don’t remember me?”
I swallowed.
“No.”
She sat up slowly.
“Seriously?”
“Where am I?”
“My apartment.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“You’re kidding.”
“You came here last night.”
I tried to remember.
The bar.
Whiskey.
The blonde woman.
I stared at her.
“You… were the woman in the bar?”
She nodded.
“Yeah.”
I held my head.
“Oh God…”
4
Her name was Laura Bennett.
Twenty-nine years old.
A nurse at the city hospital.
She told me that last night I was so drunk I could barely stand.
Laura said,
“You almost got into a fight with two guys in the bar.”
I frowned.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I had to pull you outside.”
I looked at her.
“And then?”
Laura shrugged.
“You don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
“I tried to call a taxi for you.”
“But?”
“You couldn’t remember your home address.”
I cursed silently.
Laura continued,
“You also dropped your wallet.”
I quickly checked.
My wallet was still there.
She said,
“I found your driver’s license.”
“Then why didn’t you take me home?”
Laura gave a tired smile.
“You passed out in the back seat of the taxi.”
“And?”
“You threw up.”
I closed my eyes.
“Fantastic.”
“The taxi driver refused to continue.”
I sighed.
“So you brought me here?”
Laura nodded.
“You weigh almost two hundred pounds. I had to drag you upstairs.”
I looked around the apartment.
“And… we…”
Laura immediately understood.
She shook her head.
“No.”
I exhaled with relief.
“You collapsed onto the bed and slept like the dead.”
I sat there for a moment.
Embarrassment washed over me.
“I’m sorry.”
Laura smiled gently.
“It’s fine.”
But then she looked at me strangely.
“However…”
My heart started beating faster.
“However what?”
Laura stayed silent for a moment.
Then said,
“There’s something you should know.”
5
She stood up.
Walked into the living room.
I quickly got dressed and followed her.
Laura placed a phone on the table.
“Yours.”
I picked it up.
“Thanks.”
“You should watch this.”
She opened a video.
The video was recorded inside the bar.
I was talking to Laura.
But that wasn’t what made my blood run cold.
In the video… there was a man watching me.
Standing at the bar behind me.
His eyes never left me.
I frowned.
“Who is that?”
Laura said slowly,
“I don’t know.”
“Then why show me this?”
She zoomed in on the video.
The man walked closer.
He leaned down.
Said something to me.
I stared at the screen.
My heart started racing.
“I… don’t remember this part.”
Laura continued the video.
Suddenly, I started shaking.
Then sweating.
Then drinking rapidly.
I whispered,
“What the hell…”
Laura stopped the video.
“Michael.”
“Yes?”
She looked straight into my eyes.
“I think… someone put something in your drink.”
I froze.
“You mean…?”
“Drugs.”
The room fell completely silent.
I remembered the strange feeling from last night.
Yes.
It didn’t feel like normal drunkenness.
Laura continued,
“I pulled you out of the bar right after that.”
I swallowed.
“What about the man?”
She shook her head.
“He disappeared.”
I stared again at the video.
His face was blurry under the yellow lights.
But those eyes…
I had a strange feeling I had seen them somewhere before.
6
Two hours later, I left Laura’s apartment.
She gave me her phone number.
“If anything strange happens… call me.”
I nodded.
“Thank you for helping me.”
She smiled.
“Next time, don’t drink that much.”
I stepped outside.
The morning wind was cold.
My head still hurt.
But inside, something felt strange.
As if…
Last night wasn’t just a drunken accident.
I returned home.
The house was still empty.
Emily hadn’t come back.
I sat down on the couch.
Opened my phone.
Watched the video again.
I paused at the frame showing the mysterious man.
Zoomed in.
Zoomed in further.
And then…
My heart started pounding violently.
I recognized the face.
I whispered,
“No way…”
It was Daniel Hayes.
Our lawyer.
The man handling the legal separation between Emily and me.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
Why was he at the bar?
And why…
Would he drug my drink?
I sat there, frozen.
A terrifying thought slowly formed in my mind.
If Laura hadn’t pulled me out of that bar last night…
What would have happened to me?
And more importantly—
Who was really behind all of this?
That morning I woke up next to that strange woman…
Turned out to be only the beginning of a nightmare.
A nightmare I didn’t yet realize… had been carefully planned by someone else.
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