It felt like a marching band was throwing a party inside Lucas's head.
His mouth had the flavor of someone who had been chewing on an ancient sock for an extended period.
Slowly, he cracked open his one eye, then the other.
The world in front of him was blurry, nothing was clear, he closed his eyes and tried again to see by opening both of them.
His vision was still a little blurry, but one thing was clear – this place wasn't his crappy apartment.
"What the…?" he mumbled, sitting up and immediately, but regretting it as the room spun around him and his head started to throb with intense pain.
After the pain died down, his attention was now on a bed he was sleeping that could fit his entire studio apartment.
He felt like the sheets were made from clouds, if clouds were ridiculously expensive and had a thread count higher than his credit score.
Lucas stumbled out of bed, his bare feet sinking into a plush carpet. Feeling something smooth on his legs He looked down at himself. He was wearing silk pajamas.
"Okay," he said to the empty room, "either I've been kidnapped by a very considerate millionaire, or I'm still dreaming. Please be option two."
In a try to know what's going on, He shuffled towards the floor-to-ceiling windows and pulled back the curtains. The view nearly knocked him over.
He was looking out at the city skyline from what had to be at least the 50th floor of some swanky high-rise.
"Yep, definitely dreaming," Lucas decided, pinching himself hard. "Ow! Not dreaming. Crap."
He turned around, scanning the room as His eyes landed on a sleek smartphone on the bedside table.
It wasn't his beat-up old phone, but High-end model of latest smartphone. Carefully he picked up the phone.
It seemed to be unlocked with his fingerprint, which was weird and a little creepy.
He was taken aback, but as soon as it opened, it began buzzing like an angry hornet's nest.
Notifications flooded the screen – missed calls, text messages, and enough emails to make an IT guy cry.
"Holy shit," Lucas muttered, unable to contain his surprise as he scrolled through the seemingly infinite list.
He opened a few emails at random. They were all addressed to "Mr. Walker" or "CEO Walker" congratulating him. Lucas felt his stomach do a somersault that had nothing to do with his hangover.
There was no more to look on the phone other than some congratulations emails and messages, but what caught his attention next was the phone's wallpaper.
A man in a luxury suit, standing proudly with a confident smile that said, "I eat corporate takeovers for breakfast." The shocking thing? The man was him.
he did not remember talking that picture nor does he own any suit, and 'why the hell my picture was set as wallpaper for this strange phone?' numerous questions started to raise inside his head.
"Okay, Lucas, think," he said to himself, pacing the room. "What's the last thing you remember?" trying to remember what leads him to the current situation.
He closed his eyes, trying to piece together the fragments of last night.
He remembered sitting at Joe's Bar near his neighbourhood with his best friend Oliver, both drowning in each others sorrows in cheap beer.
"I got fired from work," he remembered suddenly. "For helping that old lady cross the street when I should've been flipping burgers. Man, that manager was a jerk."
He remembered Oliver trying to cheer him up, buying round after round.
Then… nothing.
It was like someone had taken an eraser to his memory.
"what happened after that?" he tried to remember but nothing happened.
"Great, so I've got a blackout, a strange phone, silk pajamas," Lucas grumbled.
"What's next, a pet tiger?"
As if on cue, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Lucas jumped about a foot in the air.
"Mr. Walker?" a female voice called out. "Is everything alright in there?"
"Uh… yes?" Lucas squeaked.
The door opened, and In walked a woman who looked like she'd just stepped out of a business magazine cover.
She was tall, impeccably dressed, and carried herself with an air of efficiency that made Lucas feel even more like a slob in his silk pajamas.
"Good morning, Mr. Walker," she said briskly entering the room with an iPad in her hands.
"I'm Tara Collins, your newly appointed executive assistant from the headquarters. I hope you're feeling well after last night's celebration."