I don't remember much about how I'd gotten here in the first place. All of my days had started to fade into each other.

Wake up. Make coffee. Drive to work. Work. Drive home. Sleep.

Day after day after day after day.

Voices meshed into white noise, and anything else was just a less recognizable static. So it really wasn't that unsurprising that the first words that tumbled out of my godforsaken useless hole of a mouth when my coworker Cindy set me up with a dude, were- and I quote- "Yeah, sure, whatever."

I didn't know whether I'd agreed to staying five minutes late or finding the sixth circle of hell.

The week passed as a blur. I didn't have much of a critical thought in my head that wasn't a check off a list. I didn't expect much outta the date, to be completely honest with you. It's been a while since I've felt a spark.

But I'd already agreed to a date and managed to weasel it into my schedule so I figured- go in, smile a bit, ask a minimum of 2 questions and get the hell out. Free dinner, right?

Turns out she'd set me up with this kid I knew from

high school.

Shocked I didn't notice it at first. The way his pale hair hung over his face like a mop of straw someone had pitchforked unceremoniously onto his fat head. The cloud of axe body spray that clung to every corner of him from the one time I'd caught him practically gassing himself in it in the locker room that one time still hung off his body in waves. It was hard to get a word out without hacking. I didn't find myself minding that, though.

Didn't know much about the guy from high school, I'll admit. Saw him in the hallways. That's about it. Honestly just remembered the axe and the time his mom dragged him to Supercuts and he came back looking that bald kid from the Addams Family.

He didn't get the reference when I told him, go figure.

Something about him felt off this time.

I mean, people change after high school. Did I? Not by a lot, no. I'm still dragging that melodramatic Reddit edgelord shit around like I've got it by the ankles. And I own it, I like to think.

But he was uncharacteristically quiet.

His mouth would fall open sometimes when he chewed in this... really slack jawed way, dude looked like a mouth breather. And the way his hands moved? It was like his pincer grip was just gone. He'd regressed.

My first thought was a concussion.

That's fine. That's cool. I can deal with the concussed. They're probably easier to talk to, Hell.

So I'm already regretting the decision of going on this date with him. But I bat my eyes, I cross my legs, and I let the slacks hang off em in a really attractive way, I like to think- where you can still see the points of my shoes and it makes for a real neat silhouette.

I'm a guy, I don't know why I think about this shit that often, but I do.

Go figure.

And I let my tie hang off my neck with the first two buttons of my collar undone, and I lean forward with a smile that I really can't tell looks convincing enough to get him to pay the bill.

He slumps forward.

Fuck, I'm losing him, I think.

So I give this little hum like a ditz and I go,

"I see you've changed a bit since high school."

He slumps forward again. His mouth opens in that slack-jawed manner again, and it's only then I realize how oddly paced apart his blinking was.

"You've changed a bit," he says to me, and his voice is definitely raspier than I remember. Must've been a smoker. Not that I minded.

"Hm? Yeah, I work at a... business firm, now. Real boring stuff, I'll tell ya that. I like to think you're a bit more interesting."

'Damn, I'm nailing this,' I think to myself.

I'm not.

I'm really not.

He blinks.

And it's then I see the hollow look in his eyes. How sunken they are.

Smoker and a coffee drinker? Alright. I've been there.

"I... work at a business."

The man's just rewording everything I say.

Not a good sign. I need to sell this so I don't have to pay for this stupid fucking Michelin dinner Cindy put us up with. Cindy, and her tabs she keeps on everyone. Cindy the narc. The workplace snitch. The borderline stalker.

If she'd managed to dig someone I knew from high school up. I wondered how the hell she couldn't figure out I couldn't exactly afford this dinner.

I laugh. An overexaggerated one, yeah, but from the cloudy look in his eyes, I don't think I have to stick it that much. I don't think he's all there.

Just a half hour.

Fifteen minutes if I can do that.

I'd fake an emergency right now but Cindy would see through my bullshit in a second- I swear, she's probably got cameras in my house- and tell him, and what would I get in the mail next month? A check.

I run a hand through my well groomed hair and bite my inner cheek.

I'm running out of shit to talk about.

He's still looking at me with those glassy, sunken eyes, and I'm starting to panic, now.

30 seconds since he's last blinked.

Smoker, coffee addict... methhead?

Running out of excuses to put on my list, too.

Seems that's all my life is now. Lists.

And it feels like he knows that too, the way he's staring at me. The restaurant's lighting glinting in his eyes. I have to fight myself to not reach over the table, knock on his forehead and ask, 'anybody home?'

Instead, I reach across the table and put my hand on his.

Cold.

Clammy.

I don't feel a pulse.

...

For some reason, that sets a little jolt in my heart. I have no idea why. I mean, I'm not pressing on an artery, of course I don't feel a pulse.

I don't know why it bothers me so much.

"You really have changed."

I say, quickly floundering and following it up with after;

"For the better! For the better."

I'm tanking.

47 seconds since he's last blinked.

60.

There's a cold sweat all around my neck now. And I'm starting to get frustrated, y'know? I mean, this man is on a date with me, and he's got me crossing my legs and giggling like a dumb bitch, with NO sign he's gonna pick up the check. So I figure, hey- gotta go big, y'know?

And I give a tug.

His body falls forward onto the table, face hitting his plate.

First thought?

'Holy shit, I killed him.'

But then I notice just what all the body spray was covering.

The smell of rot.

And my eyes catch a maggot on his plate, right by his ear.

And another.

And another.

I hear him give a shuddering groan.

I don't mean a little wail, or a moan- I mean a gutteral sound that tore out of his throat and reverberated on the table; hell, I felt the vibration of the table leg on my knee when he did.

And his body violently convulses forward and hacks.

I don't see it, and I'm thanking god I don't see it, because red- a dark, almost black sort of red, seeps out from under his face.

More maggots. Writhing in the pool.

I hear a woman scream.

My ears are ringing.

I stand up. My knees are weak, and I have to struggle to jerk my hand away from the cold, damp cage of a hand that was interlocking my fingers. I wipe my hand off almost immediately, and I don't remember exactly what I see other than blur as I'm wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.

I don't know what happened.

I still haven't processed exactly what I saw.

But I remember... I'll tell you what I remember. I remember the second before he lurched forward, I saw my reflection in his cold, dead eyes. Warping with the motion as his head dropped like a fly.

And I saw my nose in that reflection.

Bleeding.

No, officer. I don't know what happened,

but I didn't kill that man.