Hours melted away as I bombarded the voice in my head with questions. It remained stubbornly silent, repeating its generic message in response to anything I said with the word "system." Maybe I was still reeling from the shock of hearing a voice in my head, one supposedly undetectable by anyone else.

Frustration gnawed at me. It wasn't the strangeness of the situation itself, but the utter lack of explanation.

"I could be having a mental breakdown. That explains the weirdness, but not the vole, Peaches, or the water temperature. None of this makes sense! This whole situation is making my ADHD flair up. I wonder if my medication would help?"

My internal monologue spiraled into a frantic mess. "Maybe I've read too many sci-fi novels and now I'm hallucinating? Wait, so my mental breakdown is believing in a system? What’s next? Monsters? Superpowers? This is stupid." I said, letting out a humorless laugh.

"Imagine me on the side of the road, arms outstretched like Superman, convinced I can fly, yelling about a system only to in reality be lying in a puddle. That would be hilarious."

Predictably, the system message chimed in with "System" triggering the notification.

"Alright, brain, shut up. Go back to logic." I sighed. "If this is real, maybe I’m not the only one who hears a system? There it was again, the damned message. "Screw you, message!" I cursed. "Maybe whoever else has this... stupid computer... thinks they're going crazy too."

I learned the hard way that using the word "computer" was the only way to avoid triggering the message.

"Did someone else activate it? Maybe I'm just the first, and it'll hit everyone else later? But why does it say 'admin'? I'm no admin, I don't even know any programming."

Minutes ticked by as I replayed the events in my head. Finally, a defeated groan escaped my lips. Unable to sleep with all these thoughts racing through my mind, I decided to get out of bed and head to the kitchen for a drink. “Maybe some water will help clear my head.”

The tipping point probably came when I reached for a drink and casually ripped the refrigerator door from its hinges. I stared at the door in my hand, dumbfounded. I started looking around.

“Okay, who’s messing with me? This isn’t even a real door is it?” I said as I looked around.

I started laughing. “Chris, are you doing this?” I stood there, waiting for someone to jump out of the closet and tell me I’m being punk’d. Before I could even say anything else I noticed the door felt weightless, lighter than a feather. I could sense its presence, yet it felt like it almost defied gravity.

"Okay, If this isn't a hallucination, and no one is screwing with me… then what the hell is going on?" I muttered, waving the door around. "I can see it, and I can feel it. Just to be sure..." A part of me questioned the wisdom of my next decision. I have no idea what made me think this next test was a good idea, but I did it anyway. I slammed the fridge door against the counter.

The door emerged unscathed, but the counter and cabinets were a different story. A gaping hole plunged through the floor, extending deep into the basement concrete. This couldn’t be real. There was no way that just happened. I looked down through the hole and busted up laughing again. “Chris, I’m not kidding dude, if this is you, now’s the time to jump out.” I looked around waiting for the big reveal, but it never came.

“Okay, come on Mike, use Logic!” I urged myself, the mantra I always used to speak aloud during these introspective dives. I’ve tried to get away from acting like this but the events of the day obviously set me back. People had always stared at my strange expressions, unaware of the mental gymnastics happening inside my head. So, I used to verbalize my thought process as often as possible. It scared people off quite a bit so I toned it down recently.

"I just ripped off the fridge door, slammed it on the counter, and the whole cabinet punched through not just the floor, but clear down through the concrete in the basement too… How? That's not possible. The cabinet can't possibly be stronger than concrete. Wood explodes under that kind of force.” I started waving the door around again.

“It doesn’t even feel like I’m holding anything. Did the density change? No, that’s even dumber. Did the concrete have a weak spot?”

I laughed again, “Now I'm just being stupid."

“Thankfully, no plumbing or electrical lines were tangled in the gaping hole.” I thought. But a hole in my house was a hole in my house, logical or not. "Alright," I muttered, "let's test this again, but safely this time, you idiot."

Super strength seemed the obvious first test. “Could I pick up the Hummer now?” I wondered aloud.

Why the Hummer was the first thing that came to mind was a mystery, but there I was, sprinting outside, fridge door still clutched in one hand. The door itself was so weightless I'd barely noticed it. I tossed it towards the yard. What should have been a two foot toss became one of the most awesome things I had ever seen. Way better than a cabinet pulverizing concrete.

As I watched in amazement I remembered the scene in the first Superman movie where he kicks a football into space. Only this time, it was with a spinning fridge door instead. It was dark, and I figured I'd lose sight of it quickly, but I could focus on it, almost like an eagle honing in on prey. “Peaches, can you see that?” I said without even looking at her. The spin was mesmerizing, especially with the upward angle I'd thrown it at. It nearly clipped my neighbor's house down the street.

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My brain, ever the skeptic, kicked in the logic cycle. This wasn't just super strength. As soon as I touched the fridge door,it became weightless, yet somehow dense enough to wreck my kitchen. The door itself remained pristine after putting a hole in the floor. “Weightless and dense?” I said out loud again. “That defied physics, it defies all logic.” As I watched it hurtle through the night sky, a testament to the absurdity of the situation, I finally lost sight of it.

As I turned back to the house I saw a sight both hilarious and horrifying at the same time. Peaches, my poor dog, was whining and floating upside down, doing one of those slow anti-gravity spins like a NASA video from the space station. Her little legs paddled uselessly. Somehow, in my mad dash outside, I'd brushed past her, and now she was defying gravity (or mass, or weight, or something?).

I busted up laughing, feeling both sorry for her and barely able to contain my overwhelming urge to get a camera. "Oh my god, Peaches, I'm so sorry!" I scooped her up gently, turning her right-side up. She dropped instantly to the ground, still whining as I showered her with apologies and praise.

As we were about to walk back inside, a realization struck me. The effect wore off as soon as I touched her again... but only after she'd completed a full rotation and landed on her feet. It didn't stop on contact. It stopped when she was safe. Random chance? Or something more? Did my will influence this? I could not for the life of me think of a more obscenely ridiculous scenario than what was happening right now. I knew I had to test if my will was actually able to control any of this. Maybe my desire for her to be safe made her drop at exactly the right time. I had to give it another go.

Calming myself, I knelt before Peaches, my voice a soothing murmur. "Come here, girl." Normally, a breakthrough like this would have me bouncing off the walls, but Peaches gets more excited than I do, and right now, staying calm was the key.

As I stroked her fur and showered her with praise for being such a good girl, my mind replayed the scene of her floating. This time, though, while trying not to laugh at the absurdity, there was no effect. Taking a deep breath, I focused. "You're gonna float now, okay?" as I gently cupped her face in both hands.

Peaches, with her eyes widened, began her excited panting, a telltale sign of happiness. I was relieved the fear from her earlier experience had subsided because if this worked, a whole new freak-out was on the horizon.

Starting with the basics, I tried every term I could think of: "weightless," "antigravity," "float," "fly." But once again, nothing happened.

Frustration started to bubble up. "This is ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "I wish this stupid system would just hurry up and tell me what the heck is going on!" The words barely left my lips when the familiar, generic message echoed in my head.

Reboot sequence in process. Estimated time to full activation: 3 hours 01 minute and 42 seconds. Please be aware that during the activation process admin may experience random increases or decreases in attributes and abilities.”

“Aahhh” I screamed. I felt like I was going crazy." Only a few hours left until this stupid thing comes online," I muttered. I should've just kept my mouth shut and waited for the timer to tick down.

The words were barely out of my mouth when an owl swooped overhead. As it passed, its flight inexplicably slowed, then stopped altogether. Frozen in mid-air, ten feet above where I'd been experimenting with Peaches. My stomach lurched. Now what…Was time frozen? I scrambled to my feet, circling the owl, searching for some rational explanation – a hidden net, maybe? But the only answer that stared back was the impossible sight of a bird suspended in time.

Even Peaches was stuck, tongue lolling out in a comical pose. "Damn it," I breathed. Panic gnawed at me. I called her name, but her eyes remained fixed on where I'd been before the world seemingly hit pause.

Maybe talking hadn't worked before, but I had to try something. "Unfreeze! Speed up! Go! Start moving!" I barked a string of commands, each one as ineffective as the last. This was another dead end, just like trying to make Peaches float.

Anger simmered. I decided to check if this time stutter was localized to just me. "Neighbor dude usually gets up about now," I mused, referring to the guy five houses down. The one whose name, thanks to my ADHD's selective memory filing system, remained a mystery. "Wonder if he's frozen too?"

A laugh bubbled up as I approached his house. I pictured him unfrozen, bewildered, as I told him to come outside. The image of him freaking out at the frozen owl and Peaches was almost comical. But this time fate wasn't on my side. A light glowed in his living room, but the doorbell seemed to not function. I had just used it days prior. I checked the front door but it was firmly locked. Breaking in wasn't an option. Time travel shenanigans were fun until you had to explain why you were jimmying your neighbor's door while everything was frozen.

With a sigh, I retraced my steps, the unsettling thought gnawing at me. A childhood book about a time-manipulating jacket resurfaced in my memory. Eddie, the protagonist, had pushed time's limits, freezing everything. In his frozen world, he'd kissed a girl, accidentally bumping and shoving people on the way. When time unfroze, chaos ensued. A massive bruise bloomed on one guy's waist, another went flying, and the girl...well, let's just say she looked like she'd been through a battle. It sent a shiver down my spine. If that's what happened with minor movements, then touching anything was out of the question. I might've already messed with his doorbell and doorknob. Staying put seemed like the safest option.

"This is fantastic," I muttered sarcastically. "Just fantastic. Why isn't the auto-message activating?" Panic started to bubble. "If I'm stuck frozen and the damn system doesn’t reboot..."

Better safe than sorry, I decided. No point causing accidental destruction in a possibly temporary situation. So I sat… And sat. Time stretched endlessly. With a shrug, I figured meditation was worth a shot. Of course it didn’t work, I had never been able to meditate without falling asleep.

Peaches' enthusiastic licking woke me. Never was dog slobber so welcome, though considering my aversion to it, that wasn't saying much.

Dawn had broken, painting the sky with streaks of pink and orange. Despite the bizarre situation, I was grateful for the sleep. It had cleared my head. Now, the burning question: how much longer was left on this timer? "System, are you active?" I asked, a sliver of hope in my voice. The laws of physics seemed to be taking a vacation, and I desperately wanted them to come back.

Reboot sequence in process. Estimated time to full activation: 00 hours 07 minute and 57 seconds. Please be aware that during the activation process admin may experience random increases or decreases in attributes and abilities.”

Relief washed over me as I saw the activation timer nearing completion. "Sweet, almost there!" I practically shouted, eager to get some answers. I stretched my legs, the stiffness from sitting on the grass a reminder of the strange situation. Peaches, ever the punctual eater, had taken up her position by the pantry door. Her routine was well-rehearsed: stare at the door, then at me, then back at the door, an insistent cycle until the coveted food materialized in her bowl. My stomach rumbled in agreement.

Reaching for the fridge in my half awoken stuper, I stumbled and barely caught myself. Thankfully, my balance seemed to have returned. Tumbling thirty feet through the kitchen floor wouldn't exactly be a smooth landing, compared to the harmless tumble off the Hummer. I grabbed a protein shake, chugging it down. "Should hold me over," I muttered, a humorless chuckle again escaping my lips. "The rest of the food's doomed anyway, thanks to my space-faring door."

Reaching for the trash can, I froze mid-motion. “My hand is invisible? Seriously? The timer’s almost up. Shouldn't things be stabilizing?” Annoyance flared. I tossed the container in with more force than necessary, slammed the lid shut, and bee-lined for my bedroom. This is where the only full-length mirror in the house was.

By the time I arrived, my entire body was flickering like a dying light bulb. Visible, invisible, then visible again. "Good thing I'm at home," I sighed. "Imagine the public freakout if I was invisible in, say, the grocery store?" I let out a laugh, tinged with hysteria. "Not sure why I’ve been talking to myself so much, but after the past 24 hours, it seems warranted."

Reboot sequence complete. Convergence has completed with a 99.99% efficiency.