Cupids: The Wrong Kind of Spark

"Why does it have to be the Sector 7 antenna? And why does it have to be on a Saturday night when every normal person in this city is out on a date, while the only intimate relationship I have is with high-voltage copper wires?" 

Reyhan grumbled while wiping the rain that was drenching his face. At the top of the thirty-meter Sector 7 transmission tower, he was hanging on like an electrocuted monkey. The storm wind swept through his soaking wet black hair. 

Working as a backup technician in this urban slum was a guaranteed way to stay perma-single. But that wasn't the only reason Reyhan had been ignored by women since birth. Metaphysically speaking, Reyhan’s charm level was lower than a street pebble. His built-in Cupid—the invisible entity that determines the charisma and love-luck of every human—wasn’t just weak, it seemed to be in a terminal coma in the darkest corner of his soul.

"Great. Now the bolt's stripped," he muttered, turning the screwdriver with pure frustration. "If my life was some kind of fiction drama, God, at least give me one cool moment. Don't just give me scenes of fixing cables in the middle of a storm like..."

CRAAAASSHHH!

Reyhan's prayer was answered instantly by the sky, though maybe the angels misread the request. Emerald green lightning mixed with pure gold—a total atmospheric anomaly not recorded in any physics book—struck right at the tip of the iron antenna he was holding. 

Reyhan’s world suddenly went silent. The shockwave didn’t burn his skin to ash; instead, it exploded inside his head with a sensation like a thick sheet of silk being forcibly ripped right in the middle of his brain. 

SCREEEEECH!

"Ow, damn! My brain just popped out!" Reyhan screamed hysterically inside his own head before finally losing consciousness and slumping into his safety harness in a totally un-aesthetic pose.

"Cough! Cough! Damn, it smells like a goat’s armpit! What kind of dust is nesting in your head, huh?!"

Reyhan frowned. His eyelids felt heavy as concrete. But that authoritative baritone voice suddenly booming right in the center of his consciousness was so loud his eardrums felt like they were vibrating intensely. 

"Ugh, shut up for a sec..." Reyhan whispered hoarsely. "Your voice is giving me a headache. Who the hell turned on a megaphone inside my nightmare?"

"Nightmare your bald head!" the voice snapped again, this time sounding super offended and filled with a ridiculous, absolute arrogance. "Wake up, you piece of trash! You are standing in the presence of greatness—wait, how am I talking to you directly? And why can I smell cheap hospital antiseptic through your nose?!"

Reyhan’s eyes snapped open. He sat up instantly on a white bed with chlorine-scented sheets. The hospital room was quiet. Just the steady beep of the heart monitor next to him. No one else was there.

"Okay, officially crazy," Reyhan muttered while holding his head which still felt a bit throbby. "That lightning strike yesterday fused with my nervous system, then boom! Welcome, schizophrenia symptoms."

"Insolent! How dare you compare my majestic residence to a mental illness!" The voice growled inside his skull. This time, a visualization flickered faintly in the corner of Reyhan's left eye: a blurry shadow of a man in magnificent ancient imperial robes, tall and sturdy, but crossing his arms with a super pouty expression. "I am Aeros! The Conqueror Emperor of the Red Dynasty from ages past, whose hands are stained with the blood of rebels and lovers alike! How can... wait..."

That mortal figure named Aeros suddenly went silent. His glowing gold eyes widened in shock within Reyhan’s mind.

"The Law of the Veil... torn?" Aeros muttered, his arrogant tone vanishing for a second, replaced by pure horror. "You... you can hear me with full consciousness? How is that possible? Your trash soul should be sealed behind the thick barrier made by those winged bastards!"

"Hey, listen here, Mr. Crownless Emperor," Reyhan replied in his mind, getting annoyed at being called 'trash' over and over. "I'm just a tech guy who wants a quiet life. If you're just a passing ghost whose hobby is trash-talking someone's head, please kick rocks to the nearest grave. Rent here is expensive."

"Rent? I'm your Cupid, you idiot!" Aeros snapped in frustration. "More accurately, my soul was sentenced to run your love-life machine—which was useless before because I was sleeping too soundly out of boredom with your bad luck! But now... that anomaly lightning burned the chains of the Veil in your brain. We are directly connected. This... this is the highest cosmic crime! If the rulers of heaven find out—"

Squeak.

The ward door slid open. Nurse Sarah walked in with a clipboard in her left hand and a spare IV bottle in her right. Her face was flat, looking exhausted from inhumane night shift hours. She glanced at Reyhan briefly, with almost zero interest, like a professional looking at a broken machine with human DNA.

"Oh, you're awake, Mr. Reyhan," Sarah said flatly, her voice dry as a bone. "Your blood pressure is stable despite being hit by that weird lightning. Lucky your heart didn't stop."

"Uh... yeah, Nurse. Thanks," Reyhan replied awkwardly.

Right then, Aeros screamed hysterically in Reyhan’s mind, like he just found water in a desert. "MY VESSEL! Quick, look at that woman in front of you!"

"Huh? Don't be weird, she's a grumpy nurse!" Reyhan snapped back internally.

"She's not a grumpy nurse, she's your first experimental lab!" Aeros roared with predatory excitement. 

"Your Veil is torn, which means all my Cupid energy is now flowing unfiltered into your eyes! Her Cupid is just a common working-class type with an obedient soul. Take a breath, lock your eyes onto hers, and don't break physical contact for three seconds when she changes your IV!"

"Are you crazy? That's like spiritual-level sexual harassment!"

"Just do it before the winged bastards from the sky realize we're here and erase your existence into cosmic dust! Move!"

Sarah approached the bed, getting ready to pull out the old IV tube to replace it with a new one. Her pale arm skin looked ghostly under the weak, flickering neon lights.

Reyhan swallowed hard. The panic Aeros magically blew into him made his survival instincts go wild. Ah, screw social ethics! he thought.

"Nurse Sarah," Reyhan called out softly.

"Yes?" Sarah looked up, her eyes meeting Reyhan's, which suddenly glowed with a very thin golden tint—an invisible reflection of Aeros' aura.

At that same moment, Sarah went to adjust the needle on the back of Reyhan's hand. Their fingertips touched.

One...

Reyhan took a deep breath just like Aeros instructed. The air in the room suddenly felt cold and heavy.

Two...

In Reyhan’s suddenly opened spiritual vision, he saw a shadowy entity of a woman in tattered clothes behind Sarah—Sarah's personal Cupid—who suddenly shook violently the moment it detected Aeros' tyranny. The entity immediately dropped to its knees with its forehead touching the floor of the metaphysical dimension, scared to death facing the absolute spiritual tyrant.

Three!

The touch broke, but something invisible had locked on tight. 

Sarah suddenly froze. The new IV bottle she was holding slipped from her fingers, hitting the ceramic floor with a loud crash, shattering into pieces. Antiseptic liquid flooded the floor, but the nurse didn't care at all. 

Sarah’s face, which was stiff at first, suddenly turned bright red. Her breath quickened, and her eyes went wide with pupils dilating drastically.

She looked at Reyhan like the poor dude in the hospital gown was the hottest god ever, literally falling from the heavens just to save her empty soul.

"R-Reyhan, honey..." Sarah whispered, her voice all shaky, a far cry from the salty attitude she had just a moment ago.

"Uh, Nurse? You okay?" Reyhan asked, feeling a bit spooked, slowly scooting his butt back toward the headboard.

THUD!

Sarah leaped over the spilled IV fluids on the floor and slammed her body onto Reyhan's chest. She squeezed him in a hug so tight it’d make a pro wrestler choke.

"Sweetie... don't leave me, okay? Please don't look at other girls! I’ll look after you here forever... Oh my God, why do you smell so amazing? You want me to make you some soup? Or should I just take you home to my place?" Sarah blurted out with a total yandere face, her eyes sparkling like a maniac while she kept sniffing his neck without asking.

In Reyhan’s head, Aeros was laughing his head off like a real-deal villain emperor on his throne. "HAH_HAHAHA! Look at that! It only took three seconds to break her brain! Welcome to a world without rules, my vessel! Now... how does it feel to be a god to these sinners?!"

Reyhan, trapped in that psycho-possessive hug from the nurse, could only stare at the ceiling in total defeat.

"Someone help..." Reyhan’s inner self cried, mourning his new life. "I just wanna go back to fixing antennas on top of transmitter towers..."