"Damn, this place is really lonely."
There, alone, was he. A thirty-year-old man with a tired and gaunt appearance. His dark circles were so deep they looked like permanent bruises under his weary, nearsighted eyes. He squinted every time a light flickered too brightly, protecting vision that could no longer handle long screen sessions or sleepless nights.
He wore the same gray office suit he'd been using for years: the jacket wrinkled, the tie loose, the shoes worn out. In his right hand, he clutched an old black briefcase, not with affection, but with a kind of silent hatred, as if that object represented everything he detested about his life.
He was waiting for the last subway, glancing sideways at the screen of his old phone, thinking about the empty apartment he would return to. A place with white walls, a half-empty fridge, and a bed that always smelled of loneliness. He knew he would go back there, like every night. It was his routine. His punishment, perhaps.
The metal benches were empty, covered in a thin layer of dust. No one else. At that hour, normal people were already home, sleeping or watching dramas with their family. He was there because, once again, he had said "yes" when his boss asked him to stay late.
He sighed, white breath in the cold air.
"I've been here for over half an hour already… and nothing. Not a damn train."
He laughed to himself, a bitter and joyless laugh.
"At thirty years old… and I'm still waiting for trains that never come. What a shitty life."
He yawned, covering his mouth with his free hand. The fatigue weighed on his shoulders like a backpack full of stones.
"I just want to get home and sleep. According to the schedule, the last one passes at 1:30… where is it?"
He looked at the phone again.
"A little longer. If it doesn't come, I'll sleep at the office. Anyway, I'm already used to it."
He leaned against a cold pillar and opened the novel app. He started scrolling, lost in the words. It was his only escape.
He sighed again, this time with something akin to tenderness.
"This novel… it's still incredible. Even if I read it a thousand times, it hooks me the same."
But then, the bitterness returned.
"What a shame they canceled it. Right when it was at its best…"
Yes, [The Rise of Humanity's Heroine]. A web novel that had been a sensation eight years ago. Millions of views, endless debates on forums, fanarts everywhere… and suddenly, canceled. Not by the original author, but by the co-author. No one understood why. He least of all.
Because he had been the scriptwriter.
He had scripted much of those 2675 chapters. He had made the plot addictive, brought the characters to life, made readers cry and scream in the comments. And for that, during a few glorious years, he had earned real money: between 4,000 and 8,000 dollars a month. In Korea, that was living like a king for someone his age.
He remembered how it all started.
He was eighteen when he had his last argument with his mother.
"I don't want to spend my life working myself to death for a salary that's never enough, Mom. I want something better!"
She, exhausted after another double shift at the factory, only told him:
"Study, work hard, and someday you'll get ahead. That's life."
But he didn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it.
His father had left when he was six, shouting insults as he slammed the door forever. He ran after him, crying:
"Dad, don't go!"
But he left. And left the five of them: mother, him, and his three younger siblings, struggling to survive.
His mother was a silent heroine. She worked sixteen hours a day, sewed at home at night, saved every won. But they never escaped poverty. Always paycheck to paycheck, always tight, always settling for surviving.
He hated that. He hated seeing his mother age before her time. He wanted to get them all out of there… but not at the cost of becoming another slave to the system.
So he left home.
The first years were tough. He shared a damp basement with university roommates, worked as a cashier in the mornings and a waiter at night. He barely slept. He barely ate.
But he read web novels and webtoons to distract himself a little. A lot. And he started writing his own.
They weren't bad. They got good reviews. Some readers left comments that made him smile for days.
Until one day a private message arrived:
[The main author is looking for a scriptwriter for a new novel. Interested?]
He thought for a second and replied:
"Why not? I've got nothing to lose."
And that's how his rise began.
With his talent, the novel exploded. The chapters he wrote broke view records. The money flowed like a river.
He rented a nice apartment in a decent neighborhood.
"I want this house," he told the agent.
"Good choice, young man. Sign here."
He bought good clothes, went out with new friends, bought himself a shiny black Porsche GT3 RS.
"That one. The metallic gray."
The salesman was almost crying with excitement.
"Of course, sir! Sign here."
He bought whatever he wanted. Traveled. Dated girls. Became popular at university for the first time.
And, without realizing it, he stopped calling his mother.
Stopped visiting his siblings.
Stopped being the son who promised to lift them out of poverty.
He became someone he didn't recognize.
Until one day, he opened his email and read the co-author's announcement:
["Due to personal reasons of the original author, and by my decision as well, the novel ends here. Thank you for joining us on this long journey."]
He screamed into the emptiness of his luxurious apartment:
"What? This can't be real! How can the novel just get canceled?!"
He called the assistant. No answer.
He called the co-author. Nothing.
And he couldn't call the original author, because he didn't even know them; in the first place, he never bothered to ask about them, didn't know if they were a man or woman, Korean or some foreigner.
Later, the novel died. The income stopped abruptly, and he ended up falling into debt and bankruptcy.
He had to sell the car.
Sell the apartment.
Sell everything.
He became poor again. Worse than before, because now he had debts and shame.
His "friends" disappeared.
His girlfriend left him with a cold message.
He ended up working as an office clerk in a mediocre company, doing reports no one cared about, staying late because he didn't know how to say no.
His boss yelled at him whenever he could; he even started thinking it was on purpose.
"Finish this before Friday or I'll dock your pay!"
"Yes, sir… don't worry."
A coworker he was never close to would ask him with a fake smile to handle his duties for overtime.
"Bro, I have dinner with my fiancée… can you cover the forms for me? You don't have plans, right?"
"Sure… no problem."
...
He deserved it, he thought. It was all his fault for burying himself like that; the consequence of not trying hard enough cost him more than it should have.
When he found out his mother had died, he didn't go to the funeral. He couldn't face them, he never had the courage to confront it, to go visit the mother he had abandoned, and the last thing he remembered with her was having argued fiercely.
It was better to disappear completely and not self-destruct more than he should. Because when he did, he hurt the same people who had been there for him.
Now he was alone. Completely alone.
He looked closely at the time on his phone, with the frequent fatigue hitting his eyes.
[Time: 2:05 AM]
[Date: March 25, 2029]
"Two in the morning already? Time flies when you're reading…"
He looked at the digital cover of the novel one more time, which showed all the details of the work from the preview on the page.
[The Rise of Humanity's Heroine]
Views: 45.7M.
Rating: 8.9/10 (5.3K reviews).
Chapters: 2675.
Volumes: 17.
He had been part of that, from its beginnings to its end. All that was left for him was to see the product of his work.
He sighed.
"I can't complain, after all nothing earthly is permanent no matter how much it seems like it, it's my fault for not having known that sooner."
"Anyway… Tomorrow I start work at 8 AM. Six hours of sleep aren't enough for anything."
He got ready to leave, to walk back to the office and sleep on the hard sofa in the break room.
Then, at that exact moment, his phone started vibrating precisely in his hands.
"Someone's calling me?"
Looking fully at his phone screen, the number had no name or anything, it was just an unknown number from a private call.
"At this hour? Please, don't let it be the boss…"
It was true, who would bother calling him at this hour? If he wasn't mistaken, people only called him for work matters, his damn coworkers, or it could be the unwanted boss he hated so much.
But beyond that, there wouldn't be any other reason someone would call him, and especially from a private number; he didn't have friends who cared about him, he didn't have family he saw often, and much less a girlfriend or wife waiting for him at home.
So who could that person be? With that thought, he motivated himself to answer the call, with the goal of having that person clear up all his doubts.
"Hello?" he answered with a hoarse and dull voice.
He didn't get an immediate response; it was just silence.
"Hello? Who is this?"
It was the same result; there was nothing else, just awkward silence.
"Is this a joke? Because it's not funny."
Then, a cold, emotionless voice, like one generated by a machine, echoed from the other side of his phone screen.
"Lamb, book, genesis."
Frowning at the absurd and incongruent response from that individual, in an instant the office worker didn't know how to react; the only thing that occurred to him was to get angry over that waste of time.
"What the hell? Who are you?"
The voice repeated, identical:
"Lamb, book, genesis."
The anger rose.
"Listen, you son of a bitch, I don't have time for that stupidity. And if this is some kind of prank call—" he continued angrily. "Go to hell along with your whore of a mother."
He hung up angrily.
He put the phone away, furious.
He turned around to leave. Determined to get out of that damn subway station.
And then he felt the push.
A brute force on his back.
He fell forward, toward the tracks.
The world slowed down around him; with confusion he perceived everything that was happening, but without any apparent justification.
"What…?"
The train lights emerged from the tunnel like the eyes of a predatory monster lurking in the darkness.
The roar filled everything.
"Shit… I'm going to…"
The voice returned, now inside his head:
"Lamb. Book. Genesis."
Was he really about to die? He was going to be run over by a train.
The only thing he managed to see in that instant was the individual in a wide black robe with long sleeves, as if detailed with dancing shadows; he couldn't see his face, but in that instant, that was the last thing he could see.
"Y…you… Why?" he murmured with regret.
The impact was instantaneous.
Pain.
Darkness.
The phone fell onto the platform with the screen shattering into pieces.
Blood on the concrete.
And then… nothing.
Just an infinite black void, like floating in a bottomless ocean; he heard nothing but the currents beneath the water.
He had just died, yet it didn't bother him; it was as if he felt free from it. Now he wouldn't have to keep working; after all, he no longer had anyone with him, not even anyone he could hurt again.
Until suddenly, for no apparent reason, a translucent blue window appeared in the middle of nowhere, where white runes were holographically transcribed.
[Consciousness Spell – Activated]
[Status Window]
Name: Darius Maximoud
Rank: G-
Strength: G-
Agility: G-
Endurance: G-
Intelligence: G-
Aura Control: G-
Aura Potential: G-
Talent Grade: G-
Profession: [Tactical Mage – Level 1]