"Same old ceiling."
My eyes flickered open, greeted by the familiar, unadorned plaster above my bed. Another morning in this... life. A sigh escaped my lips, a familiar ritual. The spaciousness of the house, usually a comfort, felt more like an echoing emptiness today. Twenty-five years old, a cog in the giant machine of an IT company, and every day was a carbon copy of the last. A relentless cycle of deadlines, meetings, and forced smiles.
But the pay was decent, and the company paid for my housing, so there were worse places to be. I had a good job, and I was fortunate to live in a nice neighborhood, even if it wasn't exactly where I pictured myself. It was the best I could ask for, and I was fortunate for what I had.
"Yeah, yeah."
It was what all the self-help books said. But as the years passed, that mantra had grown more and more hollow. I didn't know what I wanted, or how to find it, but something was missing.
"What would I give up to change my life?"
There was no answer from the empty room.
I dragged myself out of bed, the cool tile a stark contrast to the warmth of the sheets. The house was quiet, as always. Too quiet. I moved through the rooms, each one a reminder of the solitude that had become my constant companion. "The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruellest irony." The thought echoed in my head, a bitter truth I'd learned to live with.
"Guess I'll do the usual."
Getting ready for work was a mechanical process. Shower, dress, a quick glance in the mirror at the reflection of a man going through the motions. I forced a smile, practicing for the day ahead, a day filled with interactions that felt more like transactions.
"Good enough."
My stomach rumbled, a reminder of the morning ritual I'd neglected. A bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee was all I had time for. The clock on the wall was ticking, the ever-present reminder that time was slipping away.
The commute was its own kind of purgatory – a crowded bus, the jostling of bodies, the drone of conversations I tuned out. The same faces, the same routine, the same nothing. But it was a necessary evil, a means to an end.
Work was, as usual, a mind-numbing affair. Each flicker of the fluorescent lights felt like a tiny hammer blow against my already frayed nerves. I sat at my desk, staring at lines of code that blurred before my eyes. My fingers tapped mechanically, a practiced rhythm, but my mind was a million miles away, drifting through a landscape of what-ifs and could-have-beens. I envied my colleagues, their easy laughter, their animated discussions about weekend plans, their genuine enthusiasm for projects that felt utterly pointless to me. How could they be so... optimistic? So invested? Didn't they feel the crushing weight of the mundane, the soul-numbing repetition of it all? Didn't they see the futility of chasing deadlines and promotions in a world that felt increasingly meaningless?
My gaze drifted around the open-plan office. Sarah from marketing was animatedly discussing something with Tom from sales, her face lit up with a smile that seemed to reach her eyes. Across the room, a group huddled around a whiteboard, scribbling furiously and throwing out ideas with an energy I couldn't even begin to muster. They seemed to belong here, to have a purpose, a connection to something larger than themselves. I, on the other hand, felt like an observer, a ghost in my own life, watching the world go by without me.
Lunchtime arrived, a brief respite in the day's drudgery, though I knew it would offer no real escape. As I pondered the age-old question of what to eat, the same question I asked myself every day, a notification popped up on my phone. A message. The screen lit up, momentarily breaking through the fog of my apathy. I began to move, I slipped through the back door, unnoticed by my preoccupied colleagues, and found myself in a narrow hallway leading to the fire exit. The red sign glowed faintly, a beacon in the dim light. I pushed the door open and descended the metal stairs, the clang of my shoes echoing in the stairwell.
At the bottom of the stairs, a man stood waiting. He was dressed impeccably in a black suit, the crisp lines accentuating his lean frame. Black glasses hid his eyes, and his short-cropped blonde hair was perfectly styled. He exuded an air of quiet professionalism, a stark contrast to the chaotic energy of the office I'd just left.
I frowned. "According to the contract," I said, my voice laced with annoyance, "you're not supposed to bother me during my day-to-day life."
The man's expression didn't change. "It's an urgent job," he replied, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.
I sighed. Arguing was pointless. I'd learned that a long time ago. "Go ahead," I conceded, the weariness creeping back into my voice.
Without a word, the man pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket. With surprising gentleness, he wrapped it around my eyes, carefully securing it. I blinked, my vision dissolving into darkness. He then took my arm, guiding me towards what I assumed was a vehicle.
The car was luxurious, the leather seats soft and comfortable. As soon as I was seated, the man placed a pair of headphones over my ears. A soothing melody began to play, a calming counterpoint to the unease that was within me. The world outside faded away, replaced by the gentle rhythm of the music.
The ride was smooth, and I lost track of time, my mind drifting along with the melody.
When the car finally came to a stop, the man helped me out. My feet touched solid ground, and I was guided towards what felt like a small, windowless building.
The sound of a key card being swiped, and a door opening.
They led me for a short distance, and then, finally, the handkerchief was removed. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light, not to the bright sun of a forest, but to the cool, artificial illumination of a long, windowless corridor.
The man in the black suit, ever-present and silent, guided me forward. The corridor stretched ahead, lined with identical doors, each one a blank, metallic slate. The air was cool and dry, conditioned to an almost clinical temperature. This wasn't a forest retreat; this was something far more... controlled. I knew where I was, or at least, I had a pretty good idea. This was one of their... facilities. A place where I performed my other job, the one that existed in the shadows, the one I kept carefully compartmentalized from my mundane IT existence. My secret life as a hacker, a ghost in the digital machine.
We reached a specific door, and the man in black produced a keycard, swiping it through a reader. The door hissed open, revealing a small, nondescript room. It was sparsely furnished: a desk, a chair, and a high-end computer setup humming quietly in the corner. No windows, of course. Just the sterile glow of the monitor and the hum of the machines. This was my workspace, my digital playground, where I could lose myself in the intricate dance of code and data.
I turned towards the man in black, the question already forming on my lips. "What do you want me to do today?" I asked, my voice flat, devoid of any real curiosity. I knew the drill. Another task, another intrusion into my carefully constructed mundane life.
He pulled a tablet from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, his gaze fixed on the screen. "Some unnatural seismic activities were detected in the southern part of Asia," he said, his voice as monotone as ever. "Look into it. See if you can determine whether it's some sort of new weapon."
I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. This was a new one. Usually, my tasks involved data breaches, corporate espionage, the occasional bit of discreet information retrieval. Seismic activity? "Are we sure they're not just bombing each other like usual?" I asked, a hint of sarcasm creeping into my voice. Southern Asia wasn't exactly known for its peaceful political landscape.
The man in black didn't look up from his tablet. "No explosions were detected through satellite imagery," he replied, his voice clipped. "The seismic readings are... unusual. They don't match any known natural phenomena or conventional explosive signatures."
Well, that was something, at least. If the world was ending, he'd probably tell me.
I shrugged, moving towards the computer setup. The sooner I got started, the sooner this would be over.
"Fine," I said, taking a seat and beginning the familiar routine. "I'll see what I can find."
The man in black nodded, leaving the room with a quiet click of the door.
The computer whirred to life, the screen coming to life with a blaze of white. My fingers moved across the keyboard, the keys clicking under the pressure. My mind was focused, the task at hand all that mattered. The data streamed in, a cascade of numbers and symbols. My gaze was locked on the screen, my breathing steady, my pulse slowing. The world outside melted away, my consciousness lost in the flow of information.
I lost track of time, my body falling into the trance-like state that came from hours of immersive work. The screen was my only reality, the data my only companion.
It took some time, but I eventually found something. Interspersed among the dry scientific reports were snippets of eyewitness accounts, translated from various local dialects. Apparently, the seismic events weren't just tremors. According to these accounts, each tremor was accompanied by… a tear. A tear in the ground, from which a strange light radiated.
"A light?" I whispered to myself, my eyes narrowed in concentration. My fingers paused on the keyboard. A light? My rational mind immediately dismissed it. Must be some religious mumbo jumbo, local folklore, mass hysteria. Still…
I dug deeper, the code unspooling before me, each line revealing more of the puzzle. There was something here, something hidden beneath the layers of scientific jargon and bureaucratic obfuscation. The official reports stated that when scientific teams were dispatched to the sites of the seismic activity, they found nothing. No fissures, no unusual geological formations, nothing. The reports mentioned nothing about… electronic malfunctions. At each site, within a radius of the reported light, electronic devices went haywire.
"Malfunctioning?" I muttered. A magnetic field, or something? Some kind of electromagnetic pulse? That would explain the equipment failures, but not the light, not the tear.
Then I found it. A footnote, buried deep within a preliminary geological survey. It seemed that at one of the sites, before the scientists arrived and the electronic devices started acting up, a local researcher, a complete amateur by all accounts, had managed to take a single spectral reading of the light before his equipment also went haywire. A spectrometer reading. The data was corrupted, incomplete, but it was there.
I brought up the spectrometer reading and began decoding it, running it through every available algorithm, every known spectral database. It took a few minutes, wrestling with the fragmented data, but the information finally resolved itself, coalescing into a series of wavelengths.
I ran a match for every available spectral reading I could access – geological surveys, atmospheric readings, even classified military spectral signatures. Nothing. No match.
"What?" I muttered, a flicker of frustration igniting within me. Could the data itself be wrong? The amateur researcher's equipment was old, after all. But even flawed data should show some kind of pattern, some resonance with a known element or compound. This… this was just noise. Still, I meticulously compiled all the information I had gathered, the seismic readings, the eyewitness accounts, the reports of electronic malfunctions, and the anomalous spectral data, and organized it into a coherent file.
The door to the room hissed open, and the man in black re-entered. "What have you found?" he asked, his voice as devoid of inflection as ever.
"I've checked the military systems of all the surrounding countries," I explained, ticking off the points on my mental checklist. "No unusual troop movements, no testing of new weapons systems, no increased military activity of any kind. I even cross-referenced the seismic events with known geological fault lines and tectonic plate activity. The tremors themselves are minor, almost insignificant, but their location… they're occurring in areas with no history of significant seismic activity."
I hesitated for a moment, then decided to include the more… esoteric findings. "There's also the matter of the light," I continued. "Eyewitnesses report seeing a bright light emanating from the ground during each tremor."
The man in black's expression didn't change, but I could sense a flicker of… something. Disinterest? Dismissal? "We are not interested in the religious beliefs of the natives," he said, his tone flat.
"It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover," the quote from Poincaré echoed in my mind. I bit back the urge to say it aloud. What was the point? He wouldn't understand. I simply pulled the drive containing all the gathered data from the computer and handed it to him.
The man in black took the drive without a word. He then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the familiar white handkerchief. I sighed. He efficiently wrapped the handkerchief around my eyes, effectively blinding me to the sterile environment of the facility. He guided me out of the room, down the long, sterile corridor, and eventually out of the building. I was led to the waiting car, the familiar scent of leather and polish filling my senses. The headphones were placed over my ears, the soothing music a comforting blanket against the unsettling silence that had fallen between us.
The drive back felt longer this time, or perhaps it was just my own impatience. Forty, maybe fifty minutes, the same anonymous streets, the same grey buildings blurring past my obscured vision. I tried to focus on the music, to let it lull me into a state of relaxation, but my mind kept replaying the images of the data, the fragmented spectral readings, the whispered accounts of the light. Something about it felt… off. More than just the usual weirdness of my clandestine work.
The car slowed, coming to a stop. The engine cut out, the door was opened, and I was guided out. I was led a little farther for a few minutes, and then the handkerchief was finally removed. I found myself standing in a dimly lit alleyway, the back entrance to my office building.
No words were exchanged. The man in black simply gave a curt nod, a silent acknowledgment of our unspoken agreement. He then turned and disappeared into the night, leaving me alone in the shadows.
By the time I came back it was already dark, the city lights twinkling like a distant constellation. I sighed, a deep, weary sigh that seemed to resonate through my entire body. My stomach rumbled, a sudden and insistent reminder of the hours I had spent cooped up in that sterile room. I was famished.
I went into the office, my movements automatic. I grabbed my bag, my coat, and anything else I needed. There was no point in staying. The day was over, and with it, the strange, unsettling experience. I needed to get home, to the familiar comfort, to the illusion of normalcy.
As I walked towards the exit, I glanced at my colleagues, still chattering and laughing, oblivious to the events that had unfolded just a few hours ago. A wave of detachment washed over me. They lived in their own bubble, unaware of the shadows that lurked just beneath the surface of their everyday lives. And in a way, I envied them. Their ignorance was a kind of bliss.
I didn't bother to log off, didn't bother to inform anyone of my… extended lunch break. I simply slipped out, merging into the throng of people leaving the office for the day, another face in the crowd, another cog in the machine, another man with a secret life.
As I walked toward the bus stop, the question lingered in my mind: how could I have ever lived a normal life? A life of quiet contentment, filled with simple joys and genuine human connection. Memories of the past resurfaced, the moment my path was irrevocably altered, when I truly felt alive, when I believed I was doing something meaningful for the world. Back then, I could move governments. Then came the day the organization took notice of me. The flashing lights of police sirens, the cold bite of handcuffs, the fear that seized me as they led me away, all of it returned in vivid fragments. A time when I was someone else... something else.
And what was that "something"? Was it power? Influence? A sense of purpose? Or was it simply a gilded cage, a life lived in the shadows, forever haunted by the knowledge of the unseen forces that shaped the world? I thought of a quote I had read somewhere: "Life is a journey, not a destination." But what if the journey itself was a labyrinth, a maze of shadows and secrets, with no clear path to the end?
Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet lurched violently. I stumbled, losing my balance. "What the…?" I muttered, fear gripping me. It wasn't just a stumble. The entire world seemed to be shaking, the buildings swaying precariously.
"What's going on?!" I yelled, my voice swallowed by the sudden cacophony of screams and shattering glass.
The earthquake intensified. The ground buckled beneath me, throwing me off balance again. Cracks formed in the sidewalk, widening ominously. Debris rained down from the buildings, plaster and shattered glass raining down around me. People screamed, running for cover, but there was nowhere to hide.
I started to run, instinct taking over. I needed to get away from the falling debris, to find some semblance of safety. But then I heard it – a scream, a desperate, terrified cry. I turned to see a pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, huddled together near a building. A large chunk of masonry had fallen, pinning the boy's leg beneath it.
I hesitated. They were strangers. I had no obligation to help them. I could just keep running, escape the chaos, and pretend I hadn't seen anything. But… I couldn't. Not this time.
"Shit!!!" I cursed, adrenaline surging through me. I ran towards them. "Are you still alive?" I yelled over the din of the earthquake.
The boy groaned, his face pale. The girl, her face streaked with tears, managed to whisper, "Please help… he's hurt…"
"Pull him when I pick it up," I shouted to the girl, not waiting for her reply. I turned my attention to the debris. It was heavy, impossibly heavy. And the ground was still shaking, making it even harder to exert myself. "We need to get this done and move," I muttered to myself. Time to show that hitting the gym during my university days wasn't a complete waste.
I braced myself, taking a deep breath. Then, with a grunt of effort, I leaned into it, pulling with every muscle in my body. But the debris didn't budge. Not even an inch.
I gritted my teeth. I wasn't going to give up. I couldn't. The boy's life depended on me.
The ground shook again, a violent tremor sending a jolt of fear through me. "Shit, this is a big one," I thought, fighting to keep my footing.
Then, a flash of inspiration hit. Instead of trying to lift the debris, I would slide it sideways, freeing the boy's leg.
"Push! We need to push it to the side," I yelled, hoping the girl could hear me.
She nodded, her face filled with terror, but also determination.
"On three," I shouted. "One, two, three!"
We pushed with all our might, the ground trembling beneath our feet. To my surprise, the debris began to move, sliding across the uneven surface of the broken pavement. The girl gave a cry of relief, helping her injured friend to his feet.
I was about to congratulate them, to tell them to find cover, but our relief was short-lived. Above us, a sickening groan echoed from the multi-storey car park. My eyes instinctively followed the sound. A truck, parked on one of the upper levels of the car park, was teetering on the edge, its wheels inches from the precipice. Then, with a deafening roar, it toppled over, plunging towards the ground.
It was instinctive, a primal reaction. My hands shot out, grabbing the teenagers, pushing them away from the impending doom. I felt the ground erupt beneath us, the impact of the falling truck sending a shockwave through the earth. Then, a crushing weight slammed into my back, a wall of metal and concrete engulfing me, the world exploding into a kaleidoscope of pain and darkness.
The last thing I saw was the horrified face of the girl, her eyes wide with terror, before the world plunged into an abyss of oblivion.
A blinding white light.
A searing pain, then nothing.