The red numbers in the bottom corner of the computer screen read 3:42 AM.
It was Thursday. Or maybe Friday. To be honest, it didn't really matter anymore. When you spent more than twenty hours a day sitting under the flickering fluorescent lights of a windowless office, days of the week stopped having any real meaning. There was only work, and the brief periods of time where you weren't doing work.
Deri wiped his face with both hands, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. His vision was so blurry that the spreadsheet in front of him looked like a grey smudge. He was twenty-three years old, but his body felt like it was eighty. Every single joint in his back groaned as he tried to shift in his squeaky plastic chair.
'Just two more columns, just finish these two columns, and then I can submit the report before the 6:00 AM meeting.' B thought, staring blankly at the screen, he can't wait to return home and open his d**cord to see what his friends be doing in chat today.
He reached out his right hand, searching blindly across the cluttered desk for his drink. His fingers brushed against a cold aluminum can. He picked it up and held it upside down over his open mouth.
Nothing came out. Just one warm drop that tasted like artificial chemical berries.
Deri sighed, crushed the empty energy drink can in his palm, and threw it behind him. It hit the towering pile of empty cans and plastic bottles sitting in the corner with a loud, metallic clatter. There were at least fifteen empty cans back there, all consumed over the last forty-eight hours.
His stomach made a sharp, burning twist. He hadn't eaten a real meal in three days. His diet for the entire week consisted of black coffee, high-caffeine energy drinks, and cheap energy pill tablets he bought in bulk online. Every time his brain started to fog over, he just swallowed two more pills and washed them down with half a can of liquid sugar and caffeine. It made his stomach burn like he was swallowing battery acid, but it kept his eyes open.
And that was all that mattered.
He couldn't lose this job.
Fresh out of college with a degree that felt completely useless, Deri had spent eight months sending out hundreds of resumes before finally landing this entry-level position at a mid-sized logistics company. He had been so happy when he got the acceptance email. He thought his life was finally starting.
He was wrong.
The company was a complete disaster. Labor laws didn't exist inside these walls. The upper management treated the staff like replaceable machine parts, and the daily workload was designed for three people, not one. When Deri had timidly asked his supervisor about overtime pay during his second week, the man had just laughed in his face, telling him that "passionate workers don't count hours" and that if he didn't like the culture, there were a thousand other desperate graduates waiting outside to take his desk.
So, Deri stayed. He couldn't leave. He had a massive mountain of student loans hanging over his head, along with rent and basic living expenses. If he quit or got fired, he would be ruined in less than two months. He had no safety net. No rich parents, no fallback plan. He just had to raw dog it.
"Hey, Deri."
Deri flinched, turning his head slowly toward the doorway.
One of his senior coworkers, a tired-looking man in his late twenties with dark bags under his eyes, was holding his coat and bag.
"I'm heading out..." the coworker said, not looking Deri in the eye. "Make sure you double-check the figures on section four before you upload it to the main drive. The manager said if there's even one mistake, the whole department loses their monthly bonus."
"Wait... section four?" Deri's voice sounded cracked and dry, like dry leaves scraping against pavement. "I thought you were handling section four?"
The coworker shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Deri's stare. "Yeah, well, my head hurts. Plus, you're the junior here. You need to show initiative if you want to pass your probation period. Just finish it up before morning, alright? Thanks."
Before Deri could even offer a word of protest, the man turned around and walked out of the office, his shoes clicking down the empty hallway until the heavy glass door shut behind him.
The office went completely quiet again, save for the low, buzzing hum of the old ceiling lights.
Deri sat in his chair, staring at the empty doorway for a long minute. A bitter feeling bubbled up in his chest, but he didn't have the energy to get mad. Anger took energy, and he had zero energy left to spare. None of his coworkers cared about each other. It was a dog-eat-dog environment where everyone pushed their extra tasks onto whoever was too weak or too tired to say no.
And Deri was always too tired to say no.
'Fine,' Deri thought, turning back to his monitor. 'Whatever. Just work. Just get through today.'
He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small plastic bottle of energy meds. He shook three pills out into his trembling hand. He didn't even have water left, so he swallowed them dry, forcing his dry throat to gulp them down.
Almost instantly, his chest gave a sharp, uncomfortable twitch.
Deri froze, pressing a hand against his left side. His heart was beating strangely fast.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
It wasn't a normal rhythm. It felt like a trapped bird beating its wings wildly against his ribs. His whole chest felt tight, like an invisible iron band was wrapping around his lungs and squeezing tighter with every second.
'Ah...' Deri thought, leaning back into his chair as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. 'This is bad.'
To be completely honest, he had seen this coming for a while. For the past two months, his body had been sending him clear warning signs. He had frequent dizzy spells, his vision would suddenly turn pitch black when he stood up, and his heart would randomly start racing out of nowhere while he was sitting still. He knew he was destroying his health. He knew that surviving on six days of continuous, forceful no-sleep days fueled purely by caffeine and chemicals was dangerous.
He had read articles on the news about young corporate workers dying suddenly at their desks from overwork. He used to read those stories and feel pity for them. Now, he was living it.
THUMP.
A sharp, stabbing pain shot through his chest, so intense that it stole the breath right out of his throat.
"Khk...!"
Deri tried to inhale, but his lungs refused to take in air. The room around him began to spin violently. The cold white light of the fluorescent lamps melted into strange, streaky lines of yellow and blue. The sound of the office fan faded away, replaced by a loud, high-pitched ringing noise inside his ears.
He tried to reach for his phone on the desk to call for an ambulance, but his arm felt like it was made of solid lead. He couldn't lift his fingers. He couldn't even lift his chin.
His vision darkened from the edges, the blackness eating away at the bright computer monitor in front of him.
'I really... shouldn't have worked... this stupid extra shift...'
That was his last clear thought as his body finally gave out.
His muscles went completely limp, and his head dropped forward heavily.
SLAM!
His face crashed directly into the middle of the keyboard.
Because his cheek hit the board hard, one of his fingers or perhaps the side of his nose pressed firmly down onto the 'H' key, pinning it deep into the plastic frame.
On the glowing screen, inside the open work document, the cursor began to race across the white page, filling the blank line with an endless, continuous string of text:
hhhhhh-hhhh-hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
The screen continued to fill with the silent, endless scream of the key, but Deri couldn't hear it. He couldn't feel the hard, uncomfortable keyboard pressing into his cheek. He couldn't feel the cold sweat running down his neck, nor could he feel the tight, agonizing pain in his chest anymore.
....
....
....
....
....
Everything went black.
There was no pain.
There was no sound.
There was no body.
He floated in a vast, unending space of pure dark grey. It wasn't scary, nor was it cold. It felt like being suspended inside a deep, thick bowl of warm soup, or being wrapped in a heavy blanket where nothing could touch him.
His mind was totally muddled. He couldn't remember his name... D... Dar... forgotten... he couldn't remember where he was, and he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing. The heavy weight of stress, the crushing anxiety of debt, the sharp pain in his chest, and the bone-deep tiredness that had followed him for years, all of it had vanished.
'Am I... sleeping?' he wondered lazily. The thought drifted away like smoke before he could even grab hold of it.
Suddenly, a sound echoed through the dark space.
It wasn't a sound that came from ears. It felt as if someone was speaking directly into the very center of his mind. The voice was soft, warm, and vast, echoing like gentle waves crashing onto a distant shore. It sounded ancient, yet impossibly gentle, like... a mother singing a quiet song to a tired child.
/... Oh... Poor thing/
The voice murmured, filled with a deep, boundless pity that made the dark space vibrate softly.
He couldn't reply. He didn't have a mouth to speak with. He just floated, listening peacefully.
/To chase after a non-rewarding hardship.../
The voice sighed, the sound carrying a heavy, gentle sadness.
/To wear down your precious spirit for nothing... to burn your life away in a cage of iron and glass.../
A soft, warm light seemed to wash over his muddled mind, soothing away the last remaining bits of exhaustion that hung around his soul.
/Worry not.../
The gentle voice whispered, drawing closer, wrapping around him in... something that felt like a soft silk scarf.
/Ought worthy to rest.../
/You have suffered enough. You have carried burdens that were never meant for you.../
The voice softened even more, fading down into a sweet, lingering murmur that resonated in the dark.
/My dearest-/
SNAP.
Before the last word could finish, the soft voice was suddenly cut off.
It didn't fade away gradually. It was snapped away instantly, like a wire being cut with sharp scissors.
The brief warmth vanished, and the endless, heavy darkness rushed back in from all sides, swallowing his mind whole, burying him back in deep, unbroken silence.
Author's Note
EliteToeCollector
A new novel!
and unlike my second novel, the 'i am a villain, dont pet my head', i wont abandon this one!
:D