Rise Of The Immaterial Man

Hangover

I woke slowly at first and then all at once. 

My head thrummed with the headache of a colossal hangover and my memories of the night before were hazy and jumbled. 

I remembered partying in the club, I remembered drinking an absolute crap load of alcohol, and then… nothing. 

I stretched out in bed and winced as my eyes opened to a shaft of light peeking through the curtains. 

I glanced over to my right, my hand had found a warm patch of bed that wasn’t where I was sleeping, and that was when I noticed it for the first time. 

There was an indent in the bed from where someone else had been sleeping, and if I were a betting man I’d wager it was definitely in the shape of a woman. 

I let a lazy smile dance over my lips, last night seemed to have been a very good one indeed. 

If the noises of showering from my en suite bathroom were anything to go by then the woman was still around and was using my shower to clean off after what was probably a very fun night of debauchery. 

I sat up with a groan and rolled my head around my neck, it gave off several satisfying clicks. There was a dull ache in my back, but the longer I sat there the more faded and distant the feeling became. 

I wasn’t sure who the woman using my shower was, but if I’d liked her enough not only to bring her back to my place but to let her stay over for the night after as well then there was probably a pretty good chance that I’d like her when I was sober too. 

Drunk me had a habit of making good choices like that. 

With that in mind, I strode out of my bedroom, out onto the landing, and padded down the spiral staircase that led to the main floor of my apartment. 

The Battersea Power Station had, once upon a time, provided much of London with power. It had been a dirty coal-burning power plant and had covered much of the city in disgusting choking smog. 

That was the reason the place had, eventually, been shut down and eventually repurposed. 

Now it was a place of greenery and community, and part of that community were the apartment blocks that surrounded the main power station building. 

In other words, where I lived. 

Looking out over the station and the River Thames beyond it every morning was a personal highlight of each day, though this time as the water reflected the sunlight through my ceiling-to-floor windows it only made the thrumming in my head worse. 

Coffee. 

Coffee and something to eat, that’s what I needed. 

I shook my head and moved over to my coffee machine and plugged in the command to spew out a cappuccino. 

I may have been rich beyond my wildest dreams, but some habits died hard, and pre-made instant coffee was one that was never going to disappear no matter how much wealth I managed to accumulate. 

I sipped on the boiling hot liquid and grimaced as it touched my tongue. 

It tasted like battery acid and putrid stagnant water had been mixed up and left out in the sun for a month. 

“Okay… need someone to take a look at that then,” I muttered to myself, “Gonna have to take the woman out for breakfast then, no big deal.” 

The loss of coffee was annoying, but breakfast at my favourite joint would cheer me up and impress the woman there was no doubt about that. 

I wandered back upstairs and walked through into the main bathroom, there were still sounds of showering from my bedroom so the woman was clearly enjoying the excellent water pressure that my apartment received. 

The main bathroom was an impressive wetroom with a massive shower that could fit three or four people under it, I would know from experience. 

I flicked the water on and sighed as it flowed over my still slightly aching back. 

It wasn’t quite as good of a wake-up as a morning coffee, but the warm water was doing its best to drag me out of my hungover stupor and into something a little more respectable for a morning date. 

I stood under the shower for a few minutes before running a bar of soap over my toned arms, abs and legs. 

Washing didn’t take long, but the act of getting clean after a messy night of drinking and who knew what else made me feel ten times better than I had when I’d first dragged myself out of bed. 

I flicked the shower back off and shivered a little as the stream of water petered away into nothing. 

Wrapping a warm towel around my wet body got rid of the chills instantly, I tied it around my waist and walked back into my bedroom. 

The shower had finally stopped and now, for the first time, I got to see the woman who I’d shared my bed with over the course of the night. 

She was perched at the end of my bed, sitting on one of my towels, turned away from me and looking at the view out of the now open curtains. 

There was no doubt that the woman was a true beauty. 

She had shoulder-length auburn hair that played over the nape of her neck incredibly enticingly. Her hips were round and her legs were long. 

She was gorgeous. 

She turned to look at me and it was as if my mind collapsed in on itself. 

She had blue eyes with what almost looked like flecks of blood red in the pupil. 

I knew her face. 

I knew this woman. 

She was there. She was there when I got stabbed in the back. 

She was the one who had, somehow, saved me from a fatal injury. Saved me from bleeding out on the floor. 

She smiled at me seductively, fang tips poking out from under her lips. 

“Hello sweetie,” She smirked. 

What… the hell was going on?