Glass trembled in his hand. Not from the wind, nor from the weight, but from the bitter truth settling in his chest.
The skyline stretched out before him—cold steel towers, blinking red lights, smog that blurred the horizon. His city. His empire. Once.
Now just shadows reflected in the whisky.
Leon Hartley stood barefoot on the balcony of his penthouse, silk shirt clinging to his skin as the midnight air crept in through the open glass doors behind him. His tie hung loose around his neck. The bottle on the table was nearly empty. A half-smoked cigarette stuck between his fingers, the ember pulsing in rhythm with the faint tremble in his wrist.
Beneath him, hundreds of feet down, traffic lights blinked like dying stars.
His phone was silent. Had been for hours.
Even the vultures stopped calling once there was nothing left to pick.
The news ticker had sealed it earlier that evening: "HartleyTech Declares Bankruptcy Amidst Embezzlement Scandal."
They called it self-sabotage. A fall from grace. The media made sure to spin it as poetic justice—"The man who built the future couldn't see his own betrayal coming."
Damon's face burned in his mind—his COO, his closest friend. Now the face of the boardroom coup. He could still hear Damon's voice from two weeks ago, smooth and rehearsed: "It's not personal, Leon. You left yourself wide open."
And then there was her.
He didn't blame her for leaving. Not really. When the bank seized the yacht and froze the overseas accounts, her love dried up faster than a spilled martini on concrete.
The poison mixed smoothly into the drink. Colorless. Tasteless. He'd spent two hours reading about dosages, side effects, whether or not it would hurt.
Apparently, it would be peaceful. Quiet. Like falling asleep.
A breeze brushed his cheek. The city below buzzed in distant, indifferent motion.
He lifted the glass. Breathed in smoke. Bitter and sharp. He liked it that way.
As the whisky slid down his throat, warm and slow, a part of him almost laughed. Not because he was ready—but because there was nothing left to wait for.
The wind shifted again.
Stronger this time.
And colder.
He blinked, slowly. The glass slipped from his fingers and shattered near his feet—but he didn't feel it.
Silence, dense and sudden, pressed around him. The city noise dimmed. Even the usual drone of traffic seemed to vanish.
He turned.
A figure stood at the edge of the room, just beyond the open doors.
Tall. Lithe. Dressed in a black suit that shimmered faintly in the moonlight, like ink poured over obsidian. His face—impossibly symmetrical—was half-lit, half-shadowed. Eyes like carved onyx. Empty, yet watchful.
Leon's lips parted, but the words snagged somewhere in his throat.
The stranger tilted his head. "I was wondering when you'd finally make the call."
Leon stared. His heart—slowing, surely—pounded harder now, but not from fear. Confusion? No. Something colder. He didn't feel drunk anymore. Or dying.
"What… are you?" he managed.
"A question you get to ask once." The voice held no echo. No warmth. It wasn't even cold—it was still. Like the pause before thunder.
Leon stepped back, not in fear, but instinct.
"You're not real."
"Neither is that company you built. Or the love you bought. Or the reputation you just threw off a balcony." The stranger stepped forward, black shoes silent on glass. "But I am."
The lights in the room flickered. The city vanished. Not turned off—just… distant. As if reality had narrowed.
Leon clutched the balcony railing. "So… is this Hell?"
"If it were, we'd be talking over fire."
"What is this, then? A hallucination? You gonna tell me I have something to live for?"
The stranger looked past him, toward the edge.
"No. You've made peace with death. That's rare, you know."
"I didn't do it for peace."
"No," he said softly. "You did it because you thought there was nothing left."
Leon didn't reply.
Then, the stranger's expression changed—just barely. The smallest curve of interest.
"But that's not entirely true, is it?" he murmured. "Do you remember the boy?"
Leon blinked.
"What?"
"The boy you saved. When you were sixteen. He fell into the frozen lake behind that gas station. You broke through the ice to pull him out."
That memory hit like a sudden jolt—wet sneakers, screaming lungs, the boy's pale face gasping for breath.
"How do you know about that?"
"Because that boy grew up," the figure said. "And lived. And the path he took changed three other lives. Then five. Then thirteen. You didn't know. You weren't meant to."
The world around them dimmed further. The stars blinked out.
"Because of that, the ledger shifted."
Leon's fingers tightened around the railing.
"So what… this is karma?"
The stranger smiled—not kindly.
"No. This is mercy."
Then came the voice—not the stranger's this time. It echoed in a way Leon felt inside his ribs.
"One soul, once offered. One soul, now returned. Let the cycle begin."
The wind howled. The world fractured.
Leon's vision blurred—not from poison, but light. Burning. Cracking through the seams of reality like gold beneath coal.
His knees buckled.
The last thing he saw was the stranger's outstretched hand.
And then—darkness.
But this time…
He was falling upward.