The alarm clock rattled against the chipped nightstand, its plastic frame more gray than white after years of use. Adrian Kane groaned, rolling over in his mattress that sagged too much in the middle. The springs dug into his ribs, but comfort was a luxury he couldn't afford to think about.
He slapped the alarm silent, then stared up at the water-stained ceiling. The faint sound of a neighbor's television leaked through the thin walls. Some old sitcom laugh track. It grated on him — not because it was loud, but because it reminded him of the time slipping away.
He sat up, rubbed his face, and glanced around his room. Second-hand desk stacked with papers. A closet missing a door. A single dress shirt, wrinkled even after ironing, hanging on a chair. On the desk, a folder of resumes so worn the corners had frayed like old book pages.
He took a deep breath. Another day. Another chance. Or another rejection.
Adrian tied his tie in the cracked bathroom mirror, adjusting it again and again until it looked straight enough. He had learned that appearances mattered. Not that it helped much. No company seemed interested in a twenty-four-year-old who had the hunger but not the "experience."
On the train, he watched people in suits laugh, scroll their phones, sip overpriced coffee. He couldn't help but study them — the way some carried themselves as if they were already important. He wanted that. No, he craved that. Not the coffee, not the suit — but the certainty. The feeling that the world recognized them.
By noon, Adrian was in a glass-walled office, sitting across from a woman in a navy blazer who scanned his resume like it was a grocery receipt. She asked the same questions he had answered a hundred times before. He gave the same polished answers, the ones he practiced in the mirror, the ones that had earned him nothing so far.
The interview lasted fifteen minutes. The rejection, less than one.
"We appreciate your enthusiasm," the HR manager said with that rehearsed corporate smile, "but at this time, we're looking for someone with more experience."
Experience. Always experience.
Adrian left the office building with his folder under his arm, trying to keep his face calm as waves of frustration churned inside. The glass doors shut behind him with a hiss, like the building was exhaling him back into the streets.
He stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the skyscrapers around him. The city skyline gleamed under the sun, glass towers catching the light like knives. They were symbols of wealth, power, dominance. And he was nothing but a speck at their feet.
A thought gnawed at him: Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I'm not cut out for this.
But another voice rose louder, deeper. No. You are. They just don't see it yet.
He clenched his fists at his sides. He didn't want to beg for scraps anymore. He wanted to own the table, the building, the skyline itself.
Yet, for now, all he had was a metro card with three rides left and a wallet that barely carried enough cash for tonight's dinner.
He walked back to his small apartment, the city buzzing around him — the smell of food trucks, the honk of taxis, the chatter of people who seemed to belong. Adrian kept his head down, though inside, a storm brewed. He had the hunger. He just needed one chance. One door that didn't slam shut.
What he didn't know was that chance was already waiting for him — hidden in the glow of a screen, buried deep in the shadows of the digital world.
And when he found it, the skyline he envied today would one day bow to his name.