An empty room to try and gather his thoughts again

David needed to be alone.

After everything that had happened, he couldn’t risk opening his mouth around anyone else right now. The incident on the bus with Tammy, the way he had bent Eveline over her desk and fucked her senseless, the fact that he had just gotten her pregnant, and what he had done to Andrea only minutes ago all weighed heavily on him. Even being near Rachel felt dangerous until he had calmed down and figured out how to explain the growing mess, he had created.

He knew students weren’t supposed to be in here unsupervised, but just to be safe he spoke, “I am allowed to enter and stay in any lecture room on campus whenever I want.” As the words left his mouth, he felt the curse shift and take hold.

He felt the familiar subtle shift as the curse accepted the statement. No alarms, no sudden security guards. The room was now his to use.

David walked down the aisle and dropped into a seat in the middle row, letting out a long breath. The quiet helped, but his mind was still racing. He stared at the empty whiteboard and tried to think of safe ways to test the curse’s limits without creating more problems he’d have to fix later.

Time manipulation was completely off the table. He had seen enough movies, both the serious ones and the ridiculous comedies, to know exactly how badly that could go wrong.

His eyes drifted to the water dispenser near the entrance. The large blue bottle was completely empty. A simple test, low risk.

“That water dispenser is now half full,” David said aloud.

The tank shimmered for a brief moment. Water levels rose smoothly until it sat exactly at the halfway mark.

David stood up and walked over. He grabbed one of the disposable cups, filled it, and took a sip. Cold, normal water. The curse had worked perfectly on an inanimate object with no one else around to hear.

He leaned against the dispenser, cup still in hand, and kept thinking.

A crueller idea flickered through his mind. What if he turned the water into vodka instead? It would be funny for about five seconds, until someone took a drink and immediately noticed the sharp taste and burn. Then the questions would start. It wasn’t worth the risk.

He took another sip of water and grimaced.

Sending Eveline a text asking for nudes crossed his mind, but he immediately dismissed it. That would create a digital trail. Photos. Timestamps. Evidence. He had just gotten the head of the Literature department pregnant — the last thing he needed was to drag her deeper into something that could get her fired if anyone started digging.

Eveline and Rachel were currently the only two people who knew about the curse and were willing to help him. Turning either of them into a liability would be incredibly stupid.

David stared down at the half-empty cup in his hand, jaw tight.

He was surrounded by powerful tools and dangerous temptations, yet every time he tried to use the curse “carefully,” things still spiralled. First with Eveline, then with Andrea. He couldn’t keep reacting on impulse.

The real question wasn’t what he could do.

It was what he shouldn’t do.