Present Day.
The cold hum of silence enveloped Arthur Osborn's private study, a sanctuary seemingly frozen in time and untouched by emotion.
The fire had dwindled to mere embers, pulsing like faint heartbeats amid the ash.
Shadows danced across the obsidian marble floor, cast by moody amber light fixtures set into the ceiling.
At the room's heart stood a polished obsidian desk, flanked by towering mahogany bookshelves crammed with leather-bound tomes, an arsenal of knowledge on war strategies, psychology, and more.
Arthur sat motionless in a tall-backed leather chair, his right hand absentmindedly resting on a closed book as thick as a child's thigh. Its title gleamed in gold across the black leather cover:
Mastering the Mind: The Neuropsychology of Power, Emotion, and Influence.
He had read it cover to cover three times already, but today felt different; it was less about reading and more about remembering.
