It all started one day
Alycia's eyes gleamed with excitement and disbelief as she stared at the one million dollars in her bank account. She couldn't believe it. If this was going to happen on a regular basis, she could do whatever she wants without worrying about money. A dream come true! Before that, she needed to find out more. How did this happen and why? Is this going to be permanent? Would there be a limit to this? What else more can she do? Most importantly, are there any negative consequences?
She only knew it happened to her one week ago. This ability or power, or whatever is it.
(One week ago,)
Alycia stood there and stared at the pile of vomit on the floor, wishing she had chosen today as her off day instead. This was the third pile of vomit she had seen today, and the eighth pile she had seen this week. She did not understand how people could drink till they vomited everything out in public. Don't people know their limits? Apparently not, judging by the multiple occurrences of such piles almost everyday.
It was closing time for the restaurant bar she worked at. She reluctantly dragged her feet to retrieve the roll of toilet paper from the storeroom and dumped some of it on the pile. It wasn't fair that she had to be the one cleaning up. She had realised the other workers had always conveniently disappeared or busying themselves whenever such piles appear. She sighed as she cleaned up the mess on the floor.
It was 1am when she reached home. After her hot shower, she reached for a bottle of red and poured herself a glass. She turned her TV on to the news and sat on her couch sipping her wine, trying to avoid gazing at the chair in the corner where a pile of clean laundry had been dumped there waiting to be folded. There were pros and cons about living alone. She had freedom always, however there were house chores and bills. She contemplated how nice it would be, if she could earn a huge sum of money every month while enjoying her job. Or maybe make a huge windfall with stocks so she could start her own business.
Maybe she should have made use of her business degree and stayed on in her previous job at a bank. An office job with regular 9-6 hours is nice but she hated being in an office staring at a computer screen all day, not to mention all the office politics that came along with it. She stayed in that job for only two months but it felt like twenty months to her. Prior to that, she had also worked as a financial analyst at another bank, a management trainee at an MNC and in the human resource department of a government agency. Her longest stint was two years and the shortest was two months. Boring. However, in order to live well in today's society, she had to get these professional jobs at the expense of her happiness. That's how people fall into unhappy situations and get depressed, she thought.
After her most recent stint at the bank, she promised herself she would not work in an office setting anymore. Her mother would most definitely disapprove. Asian culture. If you did not get a professional job, most people would pretend it's okay but were silently judging you. Alycia did not care anymore. She was already hitting thirty years old this year and she hasn't been happy in any part of her working life. It was time for her to do whatever she likes before she gets any older.
That was what spurred her on to get a full time job at a restaurant bar. It was fun. Seeing new people everyday and encountering different kinds of situations with different people was such an eye opener for her. Even the colleagues here were much more easy going and of a much less toxicity level than those at the bank, well until the piles of vomit came into play. It was understandable, she thought to herself. Nobody likes to clean up stuff like that. She had only been in this job for three weeks, after four months of unemployment. It's time for her to take a leaf out of her new colleagues' book to learn how to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She finished her glass and sat down in front of her computer. Time to settle those bills. As usual, her computer lagged upon starting up. Exasperated with her loss in direction of life, she gave the monitor a smack. It was hot. She drew her hand back in shock and pain. Has it been overheating? Great, hopefully it's not spoilt else it would be another thing to add to her bills.
She touched it again. It was still hot but bearable this time. She logged into her bank account and started settling all her bills, sighing dismally at the $2000 left in it and wishing it was $20 000 instead. Then, checking the monitor to see if it was still hot, she placed her had on it. Suddenly, she felt a weird sense of vibration through her hand. It was still hot. Now it's hot and vibrating..? She leapt back in shock and stood up. She gave the whole computer setup a look through but nothing seems to be off.
Maybe she should shut it down and check it again tomorrow. Computers are weird anyway. Just shut them down overnight and they will be fine tomorrow. She sat back down preparing to shut down her computer, and she realised the numbers in her bank account look very off. There were much too many digits. There was now $20 000 in it. She stared at it in shock. There was only $2000 a few seconds ago and there was no way she could have $20 000 in this account. Puzzled, she checked for any transactions that happened in the past few seconds but there was none. Maybe it was a bank error.
She felt something trickle out of her nose. It was blood. She suddenly felt very tired, like her eyes were about to close and her brain was going to shut down. It must be the wine, she thought. But she only had a glass. Too tired to stay awake, she passed out on her bed.