For twenty-five years, Mr. Dime had shown up to Draxon Incorporated like a phantom wearing a name tag. He was always the first to arrive and the last to leave, yet no one remembered his name unless they needed something fixed, filed, or forgotten. His cubicle was tucked in the corner of the office floor, gray, dusty, and dimly lit by a flickering light overhead. Not by design, of course. Just neglect. No one ever thought to replace the bulb. The competition between turning off and staying on, played a game of hide and seek with with his cracked glasses, merely plunging its slacked handles back on his nose bridge, he wasn't promoted, not once.
He wasn't invited to office parties. No one asked about his weekend or if he was okay. He had become a fixture in the building, like the coat rack near the printer, there, but never acknowledged.
When new interns joined, they were introduced to everyone except him. When executives toured the department, their eyes skipped over his desk like he was part of the drywall , his manual paper works and old laptop that turned on like the new Lamborghini HR flexed last summer and yet, when deadlines approached or chaos erupted, it was his inbox that overflowed.
He handled everything the accounts no one wanted to balance, the clients no one knew how to appease, the projects dropped like hot coals into his lap. He worked like a man who had something to prove but the truth was, he had nothing at all.
Nothing outside of work.
Mr. Dime lived in a small, one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a crumbling building on East Main. The water pressure was a joke, the heating barely worked, and the window let in more noise than light. There were no photographs on the walls, no framed memories, no trace of another soul having stepped through the door in decades. Not since his mother died.
She was the last one who truly saw him.
His siblings had long gone quiet, married, moved away, and eventually forgot to call. Friends vanished over time, some through distance, others through silence. There was no wife, no children.
Mr. Dime had once considered it, back when he still believed life had room for anything more than duty, but the job came first. The job had to come first. He convinced himself he had time, but time had never waited for him.
He applied for other jobs through the years. Desperation whispered to him often, but every rejection chipped at whatever remained of his pride. Too old, too "set in his ways", too irrelevant. Some didn't even bother to reply, so he stayed, day in, day out. The office became his world.
The only place where he had a name even if it was rarely spoken.
The only constant in this silent torment was Landon Crick.
Three years in the company, and Landon had risen like cream in coffee, Charismatic, Loud, Opportunistic, everything Mr. Dime wasn't.
Landon had taken credit for Dime's work more times than he could count. When deadlines were met miraculously, Landon smiled for the credit. When clients were saved from near loss, Landon shook hands in the boardroom while Dime filed the details in silence.
"Still here, old timer?" Landon would say with a grin that cut like glass. "Man, I hope I'm not still stuck at that desk when I'm pushing sixty."
Mr. Dime was fifty-three.
That day, Landon had tossed him another pile of reports. "Be a champ and look these over, would you? You're the best at this sort of thing."
The sarcasm wasn't even hidden anymore.
At 9:03 p.m. the office was empty, save for one monitor still glowing in the corner.
Dime.
His tie was loosened, his shirt stained with sweat, and his fingers trembled slightly from fatigue, he shut down his computer, stacked the final reports, and let out a sigh that seemed to drain the air from his lungs. Outside, the city howled, his walk home would take twenty-three minutes, maybe longer if the streets were busy.
He had no umbrella. The sky had already started to spit.
Still, he walked, one foot in front of the other. Head bowed. Shoulders hunched.
The familiar ache in his back had grown worse lately, the cold made it worse, but he couldn't afford a proper doctor. He hadn't seen one in years. What would he say anyway? That he felt like a ghost, and some mornings, when he looked in the mirror, he half expected not to see his reflection?
By the time he turned onto Franklin Street, his shoes were soaked, his breath short, and his vision blurred slightly from exhaustion, he no longer bothered to wipe his wet glasses, the cracked lenses was a sparkling star through the clouds droplets. Neon signs flickered above shuttered stores. A car engine roared in the distance. He crossed the street, barely glancing up and then headlights blazed into his eyes, the light blazing in shines of the morning sun on a summer afternoon.
A horn.
Screeching tires.
But before metal met flesh before pain could even register there was a light. A blinding white flash. Not from the car.
From somewhere else, then silence and warmth.
He opened his eyes.
There was no pavement, no pain, just softness, sheets, a canopy bed, he sat up his back didn't hurt.
His hands looked younger, stronger, the callouses from years of typing were gone. He rushed to the mirror across the room and froze.
It wasn't his face, was this a dream or did he go to his after life.
He was younger, much younger, late twenties, maybe, his skin clearer, jaw sharper, hair fuller, and his eyes they weren't the dull brown he'd always had, they were a strange, stormy gray.
Clothes were neatly laid out on a velvet chair. A tailored suit, fine shoes, gold cufflinks.
On the table was a nameplate: Elias Thorne, Jr.
A voice called from the hallway. "Sir, the car is ready. Your father is expecting you at Draxon for the welcome ceremony."
Draxon.
He knew that name too well, he remembered it.
what in the lords name is happening, his thoughts panged at him.
He scrambled through the drawers. Photographs. A passport. Newspaper clippings.
Elias Thorne Jr., heir of the Thorne estate, presumed dead 25 years ago in a sailing accident after he returns home after his identity abroad, expected to take over the company.
Mr. Dime staggered back.
He had become the dead son of the company's founder.
The one which died and led to the engagement of the last and only daughter engagement to Landson
And Draxon the empire that had withered slowly since Elias' "death"was now in his hands.
Somewhere else, his old body might be lying on the street, lifeless. But here, he had wealth, legacy, power. He had been forgotten once… but now, he was the one everyone would remember.
And maybe this time… he wouldn't waste it. His heart brewed something, not bitterness but the taste of retribution. he would crack the system and build his own world, the canvas was his now.