2:17 AM. A blinking cursor mocks me from the screen, a tiny, rhythmic heartbeat in the vast, silent office. RENT - FINAL NOTICE. The words glow red, a digital brand marking me for failure. My body runs on the dregs of burnt coffee and the quiet, gnawing desperation that has become my only fuel. I'm the last soul on the 18th floor of the AETHEON Tower, an invisible cog in a trillion-dollar machine.
My internship ends in a week. This presentation, this last-ditch, all-night scramble, is my only prayer. I press send. The file uploads. The screen confirms: DELIVERED. A wave of dizzying relief washes over me, so potent it makes my head swim. It's done. Time to go home to my shoebox apartment and the few hours of sleep I might get before I have to be back here, smiling, pretending I belong. The elevator arrives with a soft, expensive ding, a sound from a world I'll never be part of. I step inside, my reflection in the polished steel a pale, exhausted stranger. I press the button for the ground floor, my finger tracing the cool plastic circle that promises escape. The doors slide shut, sealing me in.
But the car doesn't descend. It jolts, a sickening lurch, and shoots up.
The floor indicator flashes past 20, 23, 25 in a blur of red light. My heart hammers against my ribs. I stab the 'G' button again, then again, the plastic giving way uselessly under my finger. It's no use. The red emergency stop button is just a dead piece of plastic under my thumb. The upward glide is relentless, silent, and impossibly fast, a smooth, deliberate motion that feels nothing like a malfunction. A cold dread, sharp and metallic, coils in my stomach. This isn't random. I'm being taken somewhere.
Then, as abruptly as it began, it stops. A shudder runs through the car, sending me stumbling against the steel wall. The glowing display reads: 27. A floor that doesn't exist on any corporate directory. A soft ding echoes in the silence. The sound of arrival. The doors begin to slide open.
The world outside the elevator is not an office. There is no reception desk, no cubicles, no hint of corporate sterility. It is a vast, circular chamber, the floor made of a polished black stone that seems to drink the light. The air crackles with a strange static, raising the fine hairs on my arms and tasting of ozone and power.
This is a ritual chamber.
A dozen figures in immaculate, tailored suits stand in a wide circle, their faces grim and focused. These are the executives I've seen in the company newsletter, the titans of industry. They are not in a board meeting. They are conducting a ceremony. In the center of their circle, a complex geometric seal is etched into the stone, pulsing with a soft, blue light that casts long, dancing shadows. My mind scrambles, trying to file the scene under a known category—a bizarre corporate retreat, some kind of immersive team-building exercise—but it refuses to fit. This isn't business. This is magic.
One man turns. Even in the dim, pulsing light, I recognize him. CEO Julian Thorne.
His expression holds no surprise. Only a deep, glacial fury, as if I am not a person but a flaw in his perfect, hermetic world. He looks at me, and I am a piece of grit in a flawless machine.
"Security," he commands, and his voice cuts through the humming air, sharp as shattering ice. "Remove the intruder."
Instantly, the focus of the room pivots. I am no longer an observer. I am a contamination. A target. Two of the men in suits detach from the circle. They move toward me, their steps silent and impossibly fast, closing the distance between us with a predatory grace that sends a spike of pure, animal terror through my veins.
Panic is a white noise in my head, overriding thought. My only instinct is to escape. I scramble backward, a clumsy, desperate retreat. My heel snags on the edge of an ornate rug I hadn't noticed, my ankle twisting.
I'm falling.
My arms flail for balance, my hands searching for anything to stop my descent. My right hand slams down—
On the glowing seal.
The contact is a shock, like grabbing a live wire. A white-hot current, raw and elemental, surges up my arm, a torrent of pure energy that feels like it's branding my very soul. The air is sucked from my lungs in a silent scream. The light doesn't just flare; it detonates, swallowing the room, the men, and the furious face of Julian Thorne in a universe of blinding, silent white.