The waiting room was too quiet to belong to a place that promised new beginnings.
Ash sat with his hands resting on his knees, palms flat, as if pressing himself into the chair could make him smaller. The clock on the wall ticked without apology. Across the room, a man rehearsed a smile in the reflection of a glass frame. A woman's heels made soft indentations in the carpet as she paced and returned to her seat again.
When his name was called, it came out of the receptionist's mouth without weight.
He stood, adjusted the knot of his tie, and followed the sound of her voice through the open door.
The interview room was neat to the point of cruelty. A single potted plant sat by the window, half-alive, leaves curling in careful symmetry. The woman behind the desk did not look up at first. She was reading something, flipping a page with fingers that moved like a metronome. When she finally raised her head, her eyes were kind in the way that made him nervous. Kindness from strangers often preceded rejection.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Ardyn."
Her voice was practiced warmth.
He nodded and sat down when she gestured toward the chair.
She skimmed his resume again, the paper whispering each line like a confession.
"You've had quite a few short-term positions."
"Yes," he said. "Things didn't fit."
"Didn't fit?"
He tried to find a better word. None arrived. "I guess I didn't fit," he said.
A small pause. She looked at him as if considering whether to smile. She didn't.
"And what do you see yourself doing in five years?"
He thought of saying what she wanted to hear — ambition, growth, teamwork, reliability — but the words wouldn't come. They felt foreign in his mouth, like a language he had forgotten.
"I'm not sure," he said quietly. "Maybe something that feels like mine."
Another pause. The plant by the window leaned toward the light that was not there.
She made a note on the paper. "What are your strengths, then?"
He hesitated. "I don't give up easily," he said.
"That's good," she replied. "And your weaknesses?"
He exhaled, a sound that might have been a laugh. "Everything else."
For the first time, she looked at him fully. There was no cruelty in her face, just understanding that had nowhere to go. "All right," she said after a moment. "We'll be in touch."
He nodded. "Thank you for the opportunity."
It sounded rehearsed even to him.
When he left, the hall felt longer than before. The carpet muffled his steps until he reached the elevator, where the sound of the city crept back through the seams of the building — faint, distant, and constant. He pressed the button and waited. His reflection in the mirrored doors stood straighter than he did.
The elevator arrived with a small sigh. He stepped in and watched the floor numbers fall. The faint hum of machinery filled the space, steady and low.
He thought of the woman's question again. Five years from now. He imagined five of the same days, stacked on top of each other, until they made a wall he could not see past.
Outside, the rain had started again.
It touched the pavement in thin, silver threads that blurred the streetlights into circles. People hurried past with umbrellas, faces tucked into collars, the sound of shoes striking water in uneven rhythm. He walked without thinking, following the slow pull of habit until he reached the station.
A train arrived almost on cue. The doors opened, releasing a rush of warm air and quiet conversation. He found a seat near the window and let the city slide by in muted color. Buildings passed like unspoken thoughts, their windows reflecting the rain. A billboard flickered once before dying. The glass trembled with the motion of the train, and his reflection wavered until it no longer looked like him at all.
He turned away from it and closed his eyes. For a few seconds, the world felt still.
Then the train lurched, the lights dimmed, and a small sound echoed in his head — not a thought, not a dream, but something colder.
A single tone, mechanical and clear:
[Resonance Detected: 0.1%]
[System Initializing...]
[Error: Host Not Found]
His eyes opened, but there was only the dark glass and his own face looking back.
The rain outside traced the same path down the window, over and over, until the world blurred to nothing but motion.
He exhaled and leaned against the seat, unaware that somewhere inside him, the first line of a system had already begun to write.