The warehouse smelled like synthetic cherry blossoms.
Chuck Martinez pressed his face against the latest arrival, a limited edition Sakura-chan body pillow with "ultra-realistic skin texture", and wondered how his life had become a series of professional cuddles with fictional women.
The fabric was softer than usual, he'd give it that. The print quality showed no pixelation even up close. But the stuffing had that cheap, lumpy feel that would flatten within a month of regular use.
Not that Chuck would know from personal experience. That would cross the line from pathetic to rock bottom.
He pulled back and scribbled notes on his clipboard:
[Exterior: 8/10. Print quality: 9/10. Filling density: 6/10. Overall tactile experience: 7/10.]
The words felt hollow as he wrote them. Every review he'd written over the past two years read like a suicide note disguised as consumer advice.
"Yo, Chuck! How's the girlfriend treating you today?"
The voice belonged to Marcus, one of the warehouse guys who found Chuck's job endlessly entertaining. Chuck didn't look up from his clipboard. He'd learned that acknowledging the mockery only encouraged it.
"She's the strong, silent type," Chuck muttered, jotting down more notes about fabric composition.
"Must be your dream girl then. Finally found someone who won't talk back."
The other guys laughed. Chuck felt heat creep up his neck, spreading across his pale, doughy cheeks. He was sitting in his underwear, a company policy for "skin-to-fabric contact assessment", which made every interaction feel like a fresh humiliation.
His belly folded over itself as he leaned forward, rolls of flesh that no amount of wishful thinking could transform into muscle. Dark hair sprouted from his shoulders and back, as if his body couldn't decide whether it wanted to be human or gorilla.
"At least I'm getting paid to do what you losers do for free," Chuck said, immediately regretting the comeback. It wasn't clever. It wasn't even true. Marcus probably had an actual girlfriend, maybe even a wife.
Chuck only had a collection of professional opinions about anime pillows and a credit card bill that proved it.
"Haha!" Marcus's laughter followed him as Chuck gathered up Sakura-chan and moved to the next station.
The testing room was a sterile white cube with fluorescent lighting that made his skin look corpse-pale. There were cameras, of course—quality assurance, they called it.
Chuck suspected the footage ended up on some insurance investigator's desk as evidence of the lowest point human employment could reach.
He arranged Sakura-chan on the testing mat and assumed the cuddling position. This was the part of the job that required method acting. He had to simulate actual affection, actual longing, to properly assess how the pillow would perform for its intended audience.
The irony wasn't lost on him that he was the perfect demographic for the product—a lonely, overweight virgin who'd given up on real human connection.
The pillow's anime girl face stared up at Chuck with painted eyes full of artificial devotion. Her expression never changed, never judged, never asked why a twenty-year-old man was pressing his hairy chest against a drawing of a fictional teenager.
Chuck closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would feel like if she were real. If any of them were real.
In his mind, Sakura-chan wasn't just a pillow. She was warm, breathing, choosing to be with him despite everything wrong with his body and his life.
She didn't care about his weight or his job or the fact that he lived in a studio apartment that smelled like microwaved dinners. She loved him because in the fantasy, love was simple and unconditional and didn't require him to be anything other than what he was.
The timer on his phone buzzed. Fifteen minutes of mandatory cuddling complete.
Chuck sat up and filled out the rest of his report.
[Comfort during extended contact: 8/10. Emotional satisfaction simulation: 7/10. Likelihood of repeat customer purchase: 9/10.]
He was good at his job because he understood the product's appeal better than anyone wanted to admit. Every pillow that passed through his hands represented someone else's loneliness, someone else's surrender to the same fantasy that kept him employed.
By five o'clock, he'd tested six different pillows and written reviews that would help other desperate men make informed decisions about their synthetic companionship.
Chuck pulled his clothes back on, jeans that pinched his waist, a t-shirt that rode up over his fat belly, and clocked out without saying goodbye to anyone.
The walk home took him through downtown, past restaurants where couples shared meals and laughed at each other's jokes. Past bus stops where college kids flirted while waiting for rides to parties Chuck would never be invited to. Past shop windows displaying clothes in sizes that assumed customers had some basic level of self-respect.
Chuck's reflection in those windows told the story of a man who'd given up. His shoulders slouched forward as if trying to hide his bulk. His eyes avoided contact with his own image. Even his walk was apologetic, like he was sorry for taking up space in a world designed for people who mattered.
But in his mind, he was somewhere else entirely. He was thinking about Sakura-chan's painted smile, about the way the pillow had felt warm against his skin in the testing room.
He imagined coming home to an apartment where someone waited for him, where someone cared whether he'd had a good day or a bad one.
The fantasy was so vivid he could almost hear her voice calling his name, could almost smell dinner cooking instead of the ramen packets that actually waited for him.
The daydream was so complete that he didn't notice the crosswalk signal. Didn't hear the horn honking. Didn't see the delivery truck bearing down on him until the last possible second.
In that final moment, as time seemed to slow and the truck's grille filled his vision, Chuck's last coherent thought wasn't about death or regret or all the things he'd never accomplished.
It was about Sakura-chan's face, about the way she'd looked at him with those painted eyes full of impossible love. He thought about how nice it would be if someone, anyone, really looked at him that way. Just once before it all ended.
BANG!!
The impact felt like the world exploding inward.
Then nothing.
___
Then something.
A distant sound—metal striking metal, rhythmic and sharp. Chuck's consciousness floated toward it like a moth drawn to flame. The sound grew clearer: swords clashing, armor ringing, the unmistakable sound of battle.
His eyes opened.
The world came into focus slowly. Stone walls. Rough wooden ceiling beams. Flame torches dancing across unfamiliar surfaces. And his hand: small, pudgy, impossibly tiny, reaching toward his face.
Chuck tried to remember where he was, how he'd gotten here, what had happened to the truck and the crosswalk and his pathetic life reviewing body pillows.
The memories were there, just out of reach, like trying to recall a dream after waking. He could feel them slipping away, dissolving like sugar in water.
His previous life: Chuck Martinez, twenty years old, professional failure, virgin by circumstance rather than choice; all of it was fading.
The warehouse, the pillows, the mockery, the loneliness. Even his name was becoming foreign to him, a word that belonged to someone else's story.
He stared at his tiny hand, at fingers that had never touched a pillow or felt the steering wheel of a car. This body was new, unmarked by disappointment or shame. It was a clean slate in a world where the sound of distant battle promised adventure instead of tedium.
From the depths of his dissolving memories, one last fragment surfaced; a single word that encapsulated everything he was leaving behind and everything he might become.
"A baby?!" he cooed, his voice unclear and unfamiliar.
And then Chuck Martinez was gone forever, replaced by something new.
***