Ohh boi...
The sun hung low over the spires of the city of Prague, casting long geometric shadows that felt like a personal affront to an architecture student who had spent the last six hours staring at blueprints.
Leaving the faculty, the weight of his drafting tube slung across his shoulder a literal and metaphorical burden.
The river was shimmering like polished brass, but he hardly noticed the tourists clogging the sidewalks. His mind was stuck on the bridge between his afternoon classes and the heavy atmosphere waiting for him at home.
The walk was a ritual of observation. He crossed the stone bridge, his eyes tracing the clean, functional lines of the grand concert hall. Usually, he'd stop to appreciate the neo-Renaissance details, but his pocket felt heavy with the grocery list his mother had practically shoved into his hand that morning.
Her eyes had been wide, darting toward the dining room table as if she were already visualizing the seating chart.
"Don't be late," she'd whispered. "And don't get the cheap flour, these guests, they aren't the usual," she explained.
...
He ducked into a small bakery, the scent of yeast a temporary sanctuary. But as the baker reached for a knife to slice the sourdough, Matthew saw a flash of that same cold steel in his friend's eyes from lunch.
"Just misplace the calculations, Matthew," the voice hissed in his head, competing with the baker asking for payment.
He handed over the coins, his fingers trembling. It wasn't just the request to cheat that stung, it was how easily the table had turned against him when he said no.
By the time he stepped back onto the cobblestones, the weight of the grocery bags felt like the heavy, judgmental silence of the studio.
The walk toward home took him past the construction sites of the newer district, where modern glass met ancient stone. Usually, this clash of eras inspired him, but today it just felt like another set of expectations he couldn't quite meet.
He checked his watch, the special lunch was less than twenty hours away, and the house was likely already a whirlwind of frantic polishing and hushed, serious conversations.
As he turned the final corner toward his apartment, the heavy grocery bags began to feel like the easiest part of his day. Dealing with his mother's nerves and the mysterious guests seemed far more daunting than carrying a few kilos of flour and meat up three flights of stairs. He reached the heavy oak door of his building and turned the key. The heavy wood groaned, a sound that usually meant home, but today it felt as anything like that.
Despite the physical strain of the heavy grocery bags, Matthew's mind was still anchored in the university cafeteria from hours ago. He kept replaying the scene with the guy he'd recently started calling a friend a betrayal that felt sharper and more jagged than any professional rivalry they'd shared over drafting tables.
He could still see the mocking glint in the other student's eyes as they sat over their lukewarm lunch trays. It had started with a hypothetical suggestion to misplace a peer's structural calculations before the final review, but it quickly spiraled into a direct demand for a petty, vindictive act of sabotage.
When Matthew had flatly refused, citing a basic sense of decency and professional ethics, the transformation in his friend was instant and chilling. The guy hadn't just backed down or laughed it off, he had turned the entire table against Matthew with a few well-placed, cruel remarks about his holier-than-thou attitude and fragile ego.
Watching someone he'd shared long, caffeine-fueled nights in the studio with turn so viciously over a refused favor made the city's historic beauty feel like a hollow, crumbling facade. It wasn't just the request that stung, it was the realization that their entire friendship had apparently been contingent on Matthew's willingness to be a tool for someone else's insecurities.
He was physically and mentally spent. He kicked the door shut behind him with his heel, dropping the mountain of bags onto the entryway bench with a groan of relief that echoed through the high-ceilinged hallway.
"Oh, Matthew! Thank God you're back!" his mother cried, appearing from the kitchen like a whirlwind of floral print and frantic energy.
She didn't even wait for him to take off his scarf before she began rifling through the bags, her hands moving with a surgical precision.
"Did you get the veal? The fresh herbs? Did you remember the heavy cream for the reduction sauce?" the Mom questioned him.
"Yes, Mom, everything is there," Matthew sighed, rubbing the red welts the plastic handles had left on his palms.
"Mom, I design blueprints for a living. I think I can handle a grocery list," Matthew explained.
He watched her check off an invisible, high-stakes list in her head. Her face finally began to relax, the tight lines around her mouth softening until she reached the very bottom of the last paper bag.
Her expression didn't just fall it shattered into a mask of pure panic.
His mother's hands stilled. She didn't scream, she just looked at the bottom of the bag as if staring into a grave. "Matthew," she whispered, her voice paper-thin. "The marzipan. Where is the marzipan?"
The blood drained from Matthew's face as the memory of the bakery aisle flashed through his mind or rather, the lack of it. He'd been so consumed by his internal rehearsal of his argument with his classmate, so busy building silent architectural defenses against those petty insults, that he'd walked right past the most important item on the list.
The cake the one thing his mother insisted was the soul of tomorrow's lunch for these mysterious, high-ranking guests couldn't be finished without it.
I... I must have missed it in the rush, he started, but the look of genuine despair in her eyes was enough to stop him.
He didn't even take off his coat. He grabbed his keys from the bowl, ignored the dull ache in his calves, and bolted back out the door.
"Matthew, wait!" his mother called out, her voice shifting from panic to a sudden, strange caution. "It doesn't matter. Just stay. Your father is leaving the office now—the shop is right on his way home. Let him get it."
But Matthew wasn't listening. The guilt of the mistake, piled on top of the bitterness from the cafeteria, had turned into a frantic need to fix something today. He didn't even acknowledge her; he just shoved his shoulder against the heavy oak door and bolted back out.
The specialty grocer closed in twenty minutes, and as he sprinted back into the cooling evening air, the meticulously planned entire day felt like it was collapsing under the weight of one single, forgotten ingredient.
He rounded the corner by the construction site, but the streetlights didn't just flicker they seemed to stutter, the orange glow leaves trails in his vision like a faulty blueprint. A wave of bone-chilling deja vu hit him, a sudden, terrifying certainty that he had run this exact route, failed this exact mission, and died on these exact stones a thousand times before.
The air didn't just get cold, it turned to glass. His vision fractured, and the world didn't fade it tore.
"Painful... how fucking painful! It hurts, it hurts like hell! How is it humanly possible to experience this much pain?" Matthew screamed in agony.