The kitchen floor tasted like dust and old wax.
Victor Corvinus woke up with his cheek pressed against the cold linoleum. He didn't remember lying down. He remembered closing the door, locking it, and then... nothing. A blackout. The kind that usually followed a drinking binge, only he hadn't had a drink in three years.
He tried to push himself up.
He couldn't.
His left leg was pinned. It wasn't just stuck; it felt like a hydraulic press had clamped down on his thigh, grinding the femur into the hip socket. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded his chest.
The Doll, he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. He came back. He cut my tendon...
Victor scrambled, his fingernails scratching uselessly against the smooth floor tiles. He twisted his torso, gasping as the movement sent a fresh wave of crushing pressure up his spine. He looked down at his leg.
There was no blood. No porcelain doll sitting on his knee. No severed tendon.
There was only the pocket of his flannel pajama pants. It bulged slightly, pulling the fabric taut against his skin.
The coin.
The Hunter's Mark.
Victor stared at the bulge. It looked innocent enough. A small, round object, no bigger than a standard gold piece. But the gravitational pull it exerted was impossible. It wasn't just heavy; it was anchored to the center of the earth.
"Okay," Victor whispered, his voice cracking. "Okay. Physics is optional today."
He reached for the pocket. His fingers brushed the flannel.
Crack~~
The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet kitchen.
Victor froze. He hadn't even touched the coin yet. The fabric of his pajamas had given up. Under the sheer, impossible weight of the token, the cheap cotton tore.
The coin slipped out.
It didn't fall. It plummeted.
It hit the floor with a thud that shook the entire room. Not the clink of metal on stone, but the heavy, dull impact of a bowling ball dropped from a roof.
Crrr-ack...
A spiderweb of fractures exploded across the black-and-white checkered tile. The coin settled into the depression it had made, sinking a good half-inch into the foundation of the house.
Victor lay there, panting. His leg was free. The blood rushed back into the limb with a painful tingle. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the ceiling to collapse too.
"That," he wheezed, "was expensive."
The air in the kitchen shifted. The temperature dropped five degrees.
"Italian marble," a voice said. "Imported. 1924."
Victor didn't look up. He knew who it was. "Good morning, Yggdrasil."
The butler stepped out of the wall near the fridge. He wasn't wearing his usual crisp suit; he looked slightly blurred around the edges, like a low-resolution image. He stared at the shattered tile with an expression of profound professional disappointment.
"The structural integrity of the foyer is already compromised by the... incident... with the door," Yggdrasil said, tapping a pen against a clipboard that hadn't been there a second ago. "Now the kitchen. You are methodically dismantling the property value, sir."
"It's a curse," Victor said, sitting up. He rubbed his numb thigh. "The coin. It weighs a ton."
Yggdrasil floated closer. He peered at the black iron coin nestled in its crater. "It appears to be a standard minted currency of the Hunter's Guild. Weight: approximately twenty grams."
"Pick it up then," Victor challenged.
Yggdrasil raised an eyebrow. He bent down, his spectral fingers brushing the metal. He lifted it.
Effortlessly.
He held it up to the light. "Twenty grams. Perhaps twenty-one, accounting for the accumulated grime."
Victor stared. "You're joking."
"I do not joke about mass," Yggdrasil said. He dropped the coin.
BOOM~~~
It hit the floor again, cracking another tile. The house groaned. Dust drifted down from the light fixtures.
Victor flinched. Yggdrasil looked at the coin, then at Victor, then back at the coin.
"Ah," the butler said, the sound vibrating through the cracked tile like a tuning fork. He didn't look at Victor; instead, he tilted his head, calculating the trajectory of the damage, his eyes scanning the subsurface fractures that only he could see. "It is not heavy to the world; the physics of the manor remain absolute, untroubled by such trivialities."
He paused, letting the silence stretch until the hum of the refrigerator became uncomfortably loud.
"It is heavy," Yggdrasil continued, his voice dropping to a register that suggested he was sharing a trade secret rather than an invoice, "to you."
"Why?"
"Ownership," Yggdrasil murmured, the word hanging in the air like smoke. He tapped the clipboard, a rhythmic, bureaucratic tattoo. "The weight of the object corresponds to the weight of the attention it draws; to hold the Mark is to invite the gaze, and the gaze... has mass."
He scribbled something, the pen scratching violently against the paper. "Repair cost: 400 Hell Gold. Added to your tab. Do try not to drop it on the upper floors; gravity, in this house, is a negotiable contract, but kinetic energy is not."
"I can't move it!" Victor yelled, waving his hands. "It's pinning me to the kitchen! I can't get to the coffee machine!"
Yggdrasil faded back into the wall. "That sounds like a personal problem, sir. I am merely the accountant."
Victor sat alone in the ruin of his kitchen. The smell of coffee beans taunted him from the counter, ten feet away. It might as well have been ten miles.
He looked at the coin. It sat there, black and hateful.
He needed help. He needed muscle.
"Fenrir!" Victor croaked. "Here, boy!"
A scrambling sound came from the hallway. Claws on wood. Then, the heavy, rhythmic thump~thump~thump of a giant tail hitting the walls.
Fenrisulfr skidded into the kitchen.
He was still wearing the paper bag. The grease stain on the side—the "Rune of the Grease Lord"—had dried into a dark, crusty shape that looked vaguely like a screaming skull. The eyeholes were misaligned, so Fenrir had to tilt his head at a ninety-degree angle to see anything.
"Master!" Fenrir barked. The sound was muffled by the paper. "I was guarding the door! The bad man didn't come back!"
"Good boy," Victor said, pointing at the coin. "Fetch."
Fenrir's tail wagged so hard his entire rear end shook. He trotted over to the crater. He sniffed the coin.
"It smells like cold iron," Fenrir said. "And hate."
"Bring it here," Victor said. "Gently."
Fenrir opened his massive jaws. He scooped up the coin with delicate precision. He trotted over to Victor, looking proud.
"Drop it," Victor said, holding out his hand.
Fenrir dropped it.
He missed Victor's hand.
The coin landed squarely on Victor's chest.
"Ghh~~~!"
The air left Victor's lungs instantly. It wasn't like a weight being placed on him; it was like the planet had suddenly decided to sit on his sternum. His ribs creaked. The floorboards beneath him groaned in protest.
Fenrir sat down, panting happily. "Did I win?"
Victor couldn't speak. Black spots danced in his vision. He clawed at the coin, his fingers scrabbling against the cold metal. It wouldn't budge. He was an ant trying to bench-press a mountain.
"Off," Victor wheezed. "Take... it... off..."
Fenrir tilted his head, confused. "But you said fetch."
"Take... it... OFF!"
Fenrir whined. He leaned down and nudged the coin with his wet nose. It slid off Victor's chest and hit the floor with another earth-shaking thud.
Victor inhaled, a ragged, desperate sound. He rolled away, crawling on his hands and knees until he was safe under the kitchen table.
"Okay," Victor gasped, clutching his chest. "Okay. New rule. No putting the heavy thing on the human."
Fenrir looked at the coin, then at Victor. "It's not heavy," he said. He batted it with a paw. The coin skittered across the floor, carving a deep gouge in the linoleum like a plow through soft earth. "It's light. Like a bone."
"It's cursed, buddy," Victor said, pulling himself up using a chair. He finally reached the coffee machine. His hands were shaking so badly he spilled half the grounds. "It's a Hunter's Mark. It means... it means I'm carrying the weight of his attention. Or some poetic garbage like that."
He pressed the button. The machine gurgled.
As the dark liquid dripped into the pot, Victor felt it.
A sudden, sharp taste of copper in his mouth. Like he'd been sucking on a penny.
Then came the nosebleed.
A single drop of bright red blood splattered onto the white counter. Then another.
Drip... Drip...
Victor touched his nose. His fingers came away wet.
A whisper brushed against his ear. Not a sound, but a direct neural input, bypassing the eardrum. It sounded like a doctor reading a terminal diagnosis.
Vitality leakage detected.
Source: The Hunter's Mark.
Diagnosis: Overencumbered.
Life Expectancy at current rate: Three months.
Victor stared at the blood on his finger.
"Three months," he muttered.
He took a sip of the coffee. It tasted metallic. Everything tasted metallic.
The coin wasn't just weighing him down physically. It was eating him. It was a parasitic anchor, draining his stamina to fuel its own existence. If he kept it in his pocket, he'd be in a wheelchair by Tuesday. If he left it on the floor, it would eventually burrow through the earth and kill someone in China.
He looked at Fenrir. The wolf was trying to lick the coffee grounds off the floor.
"Fenrir," Victor said.
The wolf looked up. "Yes?"
"I can't go out," Victor said. He leaned against the counter, feeling the exhaustion seep into his marrow. "I can't even walk to the mailbox without breaking a hip. But we need food. We need... supplies."
He grabbed a napkin and a pen. His handwriting was shaky, the letters jagged and uneven.
1. Coffee (Dark Roast)
2. Ham (The cheap kind, 5 lbs)
3. Bandages
4. Painkillers (Strongest available)
He paused. He looked at the coin.
5. A pouch. Something strong. Leather?
He folded the napkin.
"Fenrir," Victor said, holding up the list. "Do you know what a 'Supermarket' is?"
Fenrir's ears perked up inside the bag. "Is it a dungeon?"
Victor laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. "Basically. It's full of bright lights, confusing aisles, and people who will scream if they see you."
"I like screaming," Fenrir said. "It means dinner."
"No dinner," Victor said firmly. "No eating the villagers. You go in. You get the stuff. You come out. You wear the Helm of Linear Perception the whole time. Do you understand?"
Fenrir stood up. He puffed out his chest. "I am a good boy. I can do the fetch."
Victor looked at the giant wolf, covered in black fur, wearing a grease-stained paper bag on his head. He looked at the list. He looked at the coin that was slowly sinking through the floor.
"God help us," Victor whispered.
He looked around the ruined kitchen. He spotted a reusable canvas tote bag hanging on the pantry door. It was bright yellow and printed with a smiling sun that said 'Have a Nice Day'. It was hideous. It was perfect.
Victor grabbed the bag. He tied the handles together to shorten them, then looped it around Fenrir's massive, furry neck. The bag hung against the wolf's chest like a bib.
"Okay," Victor said, dropping the napkin list and a wad of cash into the bag. "The money is in the bag. The list is in the bag. You put the items in the bag. You do not carry them in your mouth. You do not eat them."
"In the bag," Fenrir repeated, looking down at the smiling sun. "I am a pack mule."
"You are a Service Dog," Victor corrected. "Now go. And Fenrir?"
The wolf paused at the door.
"Don't speak," Victor said. "Service dogs don't ask for price checks. If you talk, they will call the army. Just... bark if you have to."
Fenrir nodded solemnly. "Woof."
"Close enough."
Fenrir turned and trotted towards the door, his tail knocking a magnet off the fridge. The yellow bag swung rhythmically with each step.
Victor watched him go. He realized, with a sinking feeling, that he had just sent a world-ending entity to buy ham. But then, he looked at the coffee machine. He looked at his shaking hands.
He took another sip of his metallic coffee.
He looked down at the coin.
Life Expectancy: Three months.
"Three months," he said to the empty room.
It sounded like a long time. A luxury, really.
"But the interest compounds every hour," Victor muttered, doing the mental math. "If I don't pay the 400 Gold for the floor by noon, it becomes 440. By dinner, it's 600."
He looked at the coin again. It was killing him, yes. It was draining his life force, turning his blood to sludge. But the debt? The debt was faster.
The coin would kill him in ninety days. The bank would kill him in ninety minutes.
Victor sighed, finishing his coffee. "I'm going to need more ham."