The conference room was a glass box, cold and sterile. The only sound was the hum of the air conditioner, a flat white noise that seemed to be mocking the silent, bloodless execution taking place. Lucian stared at the HR rep—Jessica, was it?—and her practiced, professionally detached face. He almost had to laugh.
In fact, he did. A short, dry chuckle that sounded harsh in the quiet room.
"Alright," he said, leaning back against the cold leather of the chair and holding up his hands. "I've got nothing to say, and I don't want to hear the 'we appreciate your years of service' bullshit. Let's just get the paperwork done."
He saw the whole picture with perfect clarity. He'd been sitting in that executive chair for years, but it was like sitting on the rim of a volcano. How many pairs of eyes were staring up from below? How many hungry, wolf-like figures were just waiting, praying, for him to slip and fall? His achievements, his seniority… in the great, grinding gears of the corporation, they were just carbon buildup that had to be scraped off every now and then. There are no evergreens here. The moment you walk away, the coffee gets cold. It was the way of the world.
Thirty minutes later, his signature was on the last page. He was using the same Parker pen the company had given him when he first got the promotion. Now, he was using it to sign his own corporate death warrant. He didn't bother with a handover; they didn't want one. The projects, the contacts, the network he'd built—the second he'd been "invited" into this room, none of it belonged to him anymore.
He tossed his ID badge on the table. It made a soft, plastic slap.
Without a backward glance or a word to anyone, he walked out. The polished steel of the elevator doors reflected a man who looked… hunched over. In that instant, he felt like a dog kicked out of its own home.
The night bled like ink over the city. The neon lights fought to push it back but only succeeded in making the shadows deeper. Lucian called a few friends, the ones he could still count on, and made plans to get drunk. Alcohol: the most honest and affordable anesthetic a man can find.
He cut through the blare and sizzle of a street-food market, turning into the back alley where the bar was tucked away. That's when someone blocked his path.
A monk—or at least, a man in the tattered robes of one. He was stick-thin, perched on a rickety stool in front of a faded tapestry of a Ba Gua diagram. He hadn't looked at anyone else who passed, but as Lucian approached, his head came up slowly.
"Sir, a moment," he said. His voice was raspy, like sandpaper on old wood. "I can see a darkness in your brow, a shadow over your spirit. You have just suffered a great upheaval, I think."
Lucian stopped, one eyebrow raised. The C-suite executive in him instantly started deconstructing the ploy. It was a classic cold reading. Start with a vague but high-probability guess to filter out the desperate and the gullible.
A cynical smirk touched his lips. "You've got a good eye, master. But I'm a man of logic and data. I don't buy into all this hocus-pocus."
"Whether you buy into it or not, it is still there." The monk lowered his gaze, his fingers rolling over a string of greasy-looking prayer beads. He said it as if Lucian's opinion was utterly irrelevant to the facts.
The whole holier-than-thou act was starting to piss Lucian off. He was about to walk away when the monk spoke again. This time, his voice carried a strange, unnerving chill.
"Your path is paved with hardship. Your life's work will be a gift to others. You will be betrayed, time and again… and you will die a violent death. On a battlefield."
"A battlefield?" Lucian's temper flared. He spun around to face the man. "You've got to be kidding me! There's a limit to the bullshit you can spew, old man. I don't want your business, but that doesn't give you the right to curse me. What era do you think this is? We live in peaceful times. My country hasn't seen a war in a hundred years. I'm just a normal guy—I've never even held a gun. Die on a battlefield? What is that, a bad joke?"
The monk remained completely unfazed by his anger. He quietly reached into his robe and pulled out a stone, holding it out.
It was blood-red. Even in the dim light of the alley, it seemed to have a life of its own, a liquid light swirling deep inside.
"This can help you," the monk said, his calm voice unwavering. "Believe it, or don't. Place it by your pillow tonight, and you will see the truth for yourself. But remember this: in this world, only you can save yourself."
Lucian stared at the stone, a wave of irritation washing over him. "My fate is in my own hands!" he growled, trying to convince himself as much as the monk. "And I haven't sunk so low that I need saving by a goddamn rock!"
He turned and plunged into the darkness of the alley without looking back. Behind him, the monk watched him go, sighed a long, slow breath, and said nothing more.
…
The silence in his apartment was oppressive. Without the constant ringing of his work phone or the mountains of documents waiting for his review, the sheer emptiness of the space threatened to swallow him whole. He threw himself onto his bed, too exhausted to even shower, wanting only the oblivion of sleep.
As he rolled over, ready to let the darkness take him, his fingers brushed against something cool and smooth on the sheets.
He shot up, fumbling for the lamp switch.
A blood-red stone was sitting silently on the pillow next to his head.
"What the…?"
The last remnants of his buzz evaporated. He snatched the stone, its cold weight a solid, undeniable presence in his hand. He immediately jumped out of bed and checked the door, the windows. Everything was locked tight. He lived on the eighth floor. It was impossible for a stranger to have gotten in without him knowing, especially just to leave a rock.
That monk… how did he know his address? And how, in such a short amount of time, had he gotten here and placed it by his bed without a sound?
A thousand unanswerable questions crashed against the dam of scientific reason he'd built his life on. He talked a big game about not believing, but a deep-seated awe for the vast, unknowable universe was now bubbling to the surface. Maybe some things really couldn't be explained by theory and logic.
Maybe, tonight, he'd just stumbled into one of them.
Overwhelmed by doubt and a creeping unease, he finally let exhaustion win. In the dead of night, as Lucian slept soundly, the red stone on his pillow began… to glow.
A soft, eerie crimson light pulsed from within. The light grew, steadily, until it enveloped the entire bed, swallowing the sleeping Lucian whole.
And the unexpected… happened.