Adam didn't leave the bathroom for a long time.
He stood there, gripping the sink, staring at his reflection like it might give him answers. The face looking back offered nothing. Same tired eyes. Same hollow expression. Same stubble he should probably shave but wouldn't. Same person, supposedly.
But something had changed. Something fundamental.
The emptiness where his pain should be wasn't fading. Wasn't temporary. It had been hours now since he'd woken up, since he'd read Lily's message and felt absolutely nothing, and the absence remained absolute. Complete. Unchanging.
He'd tried everything. Forced himself to think about Lily's message, read it three more times word by word until he knew it by heart. Pictured Marcus sitting in his chair, that smug professional expression on his face. Remembered every detail of that conference room, that betrayal, that moment his entire world had shattered into pieces.
Nothing.
It was like trying to feel a limb that had been amputated. He knew it should be there. Could remember what it felt like, the weight of it, the pain that had consumed him just yesterday. But when he reached for it now, there was only empty space. A void where something vital used to be.
"What the hell is happening to me?"
His voice sounded strange in the quiet apartment. Flat. Detached. Like he was asking about the weather, not questioning his own sanity.
He finally released the sink, his fingers aching from how hard he'd been gripping the porcelain edge. White knuckles slowly returning to normal color. He flexed his hands, watched the blood flow back, felt the pins and needles sensation.
At least he could still feel that.
Adam walked back to the living room, each step deliberate. The bottles were still scattered across the floor like evidence at a crime scene. The takeout containers. The general chaos of a man who'd stopped caring about anything, including basic hygiene and organization.
Evidence of last night. Evidence of the moment before everything changed.
He unlocked his phone again, opened a browser intending to search for his symptoms.
Where did you even start with something like this? How did you google "I wished away my feelings and it actually worked"?
He typed slowly, trying different combinations of words, feeling ridiculous but desperate.
"suddenly can't feel emotions"
The results were immediate. Hundreds of articles. Thousands. Depression. Grief. Trauma responses. Emotional numbness as a symptom of PTSD. Dissociative disorders. Adjustment disorders. The internet had no shortage of explanations for people who couldn't feel.
He scrolled through them, reading quickly, scanning for anything that matched. Some of it fit superficially. The inability to access feelings. The sense of disconnection from events that should matter. The flatness.
But none of it explained the specificity. The precision.
He could still feel other things. Hunger gnawing at his stomach, reminding him he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. Fatigue in his muscles. The dull throb of his hangover. Physical sensations were all intact.
It was only the pain related to them that had vanished. Only Lily and Marcus. Only Nexus. Only the betrayal.
Everything else remained.
He tried again, refined his search.
"selective emotional numbness"
More articles. Dissociation. Compartmentalization. Defense mechanisms the brain used to protect itself from overwhelming trauma. The mind's ability to wall off unbearable experiences, lock them away where they couldn't cause damage.
Maybe that was it. Maybe his mind had just decided enough was enough and found a way to protect him. Maybe this was biology, not magic. Evolution. Survival instinct.
But that didn't explain the timing. The precision. The way it had happened the exact moment he'd wished for it, begged for it in the darkness of his apartment.
Please, Just..... let me stop feeling this.
Had he done this to himself somehow? Through sheer force of will? Through desperation so profound it had rewired his brain?
Was that even possible?
Adam set the phone down, rubbed his eyes with both palms. His head was starting to hurt again, but differently this time. Not the hangover pounding. This was the ache of thinking in circles, chasing answers that didn't exist, trying to logic his way through something that defied logic.
He stood, needing movement. Paced the length of the living room. Three steps one way. Turn. Three steps back. The apartment suddenly felt too small. He wasn't claustrophobic but he could feel the walls closing in.
Think logically. Break it down. What are the actual possibilities here?
Option one: Psychological break. His brain had fragmented under stress, created some kind of defense mechanism. Selective amnesia for emotions. It happened, didn't it? People blocked out traumatic memories. Trauma victims sometimes couldn't remember the events that hurt them. Maybe this was the same thing, just applied to feelings instead of memories.
But he remembered everything. Every word Marcus had said. Every moment of Lily's cold dismissal. The folder sliding across the table. The settlement amount. Every excruciating detail was crystal clear in his mind.
He just couldn't feel it anymore.
Option two: Medical condition. Brain tumor. Stroke. Aneurysm. Some kind of neurological damage that had somehow affected only the specific neural pathways related to this one trauma.
He pulled up his phone again, searched for symptoms of brain damage. Headaches. Vision problems. Difficulty speaking. Memory loss. Personality changes. Seizures.
Nothing matched. No symptoms beyond the emotional absence. He could think clearly. See clearly. Remember clearly. He just couldn't hurt clearly.
Option three: He was losing his mind.
That one was harder to dismiss outright. How did you know if you were going crazy? Would you even be aware of it happening? Or would your fractured perception seem completely normal to you while the world around you recognized the break?
Maybe this was the first symptom. Maybe tomorrow he'd wake up and reality would be even more fractured. Maybe the walls would start talking or people would have two faces or time would run backwards.
The thought should have terrified him.
It didn't.
And wasn't that proof enough? What sane person wouldn't be afraid of losing their sanity?
Adam stopped pacing. Looked around the apartment with fresh eyes. Everything was exactly as it had been. Solid. Real. Three dimensional and obedient to physics. The morning light filtering through the curtains at the correct angle for this time of day. The empty bottles exactly where he'd left them. The takeout containers still smelling faintly of old food.
All of it concrete and present and behaving exactly as reality should behave.
He didn't feel crazy. Didn't feel disconnected from the world. He felt clear. Focused. Like a fog had lifted and he could finally see without obstruction.
Just emptier.
"spontaneous emotional detachment disorder"
"sudden inability to feel specific emotions cause"
"psychological powers real humans"
That last search felt stupid the moment he typed it, embarrassing even though no one was watching, but he did it anyway. The results were exactly what he expected. Comic books. Science fiction novels. Fantasy forums. Superhero movies. People arguing about whether telepathy was theoretically possible or if telekinesis violated the laws of physics.
Nothing real. Nothing that applied to actual human beings in actual apartments trying to make sense of actual impossible things happening to them.
He closed the browser. Tossed the phone onto the couch where it landed with a soft thump against the cushions.
Maybe he was approaching this all wrong. Maybe the "why" didn't matter, at least not right now. Maybe the only question that actually mattered was simpler: What now?
He had no pain. No emotional attachment to the two people who'd systematically destroyed his life. They'd taken his company, his future, his trust, everything he'd built and believed in. Carved him out and tossed him aside.
And he felt nothing about it.
Was that a problem?
Or was it a gift?
Adam walked to the window, pulled back the curtain. The city stretched out below, bustling and indifferent as always. People going about their lives. Walking dogs. Getting coffee. Heading to jobs they probably hated. Working. Eating. Loving. Hurting.
All of them carrying their pain like weight on their backs. Dragging it with them everywhere they went.
And him?
He'd put his down.
The thought settled over him slowly, sinking in like water into dry earth. Not comforting exactly, but clarifying. Crystallizing something that had been nebulous.
He didn't have answers. Didn't know if this was permanent or temporary, blessing or curse. Didn't know if he should see a doctor or a therapist or just wait it out and see what happened next.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: he wasn't in pain anymore.
The weight that had crushed his chest for three days was gone. The ache that had made it hard to breathe had vanished. The rage and hurt and betrayal that had consumed him had simply ceased to exist.
And everything else? The questions, the confusion, the implications?
He'd figure it out.
Adam let the curtain fall closed. Turned back to face the apartment. The mess. The evidence of his breakdown. The physical manifestation of three days spent drowning in feelings that no longer existed.
He didn't need any of it anymore.
Time to clean up. Time to move forward. Time to shower and shave and rejoin the world of the living.
Time to see what he could build from the ashes of everything he'd lost.