The mattress dipped beneath me each time I shifted, the springs groaning like something alive inside the frame. The shelter was quieter than usual—no arguments, no coughing from the corner bunks—only the city breathing faintly through the cracked window above my head. The air smelled of damp concrete and disinfectant, and I lay there staring at the underside of the upper bunk, tracing the rust stains that spread like veins.
The visit to the mountain felt unreal, like something that had happened to someone else. Yet my body hadn't stopped trembling. When I closed my eyes, I could feel it again—the pull of the cold stone, the air thick with whispers, the metallic taste that never left my tongue. Thea's voice still clung to me, steady and poisonous, like smoke that refused to fade.
And still—I had stood my ground. I told myself that counted for something.
But now I had two problems.
The marking. And the money.
Thirty thousand pounds. The number itself made my head throb. There wasn't a job in Ebonreach for me that could earn that much in a year, let alone a few days. Even the dirtiest kind of work wouldn't reach that high. My chest tightened as I thought of it—of walking back up that mountain empty-handed, of those eyes waiting like collectors of debt.
I turned on my side, pulling the thin blanket over my head. My breath warmed the fabric, heavy with the taste of stale air. The more I replayed their voices, the more it felt like I hadn't left that place at all. Maybe they let me walk away because they already knew I'd come back. Maybe they were sure of it—sure that desperation has a gravity of its own.
How am I supposed to get the blood of someone tied to me?
The question echoed softly in my head. My father's name surfaced first, out of habit, and I felt the old bitterness crawl up my throat. He was useless—locked up or not, he'd been dead weight all my life. He couldn't even bleed for me properly if I asked him to.
My mother was gone. Too far, too silent.
That left my aunt.
Odette Doyle.
Her voice still lived in the back of my skull—sharp, nasal, soaked in scorn. You're a burden, Hugo. Always were. I could almost hear her laugh at me for even thinking of her now. The thought of taking something from her, something that would finally belong to me, made my stomach twist. Beneath the sickness, though, something darker stirred—quiet, almost eager.
I pushed it away.
The air inside the shelter grew still, thick with sleep and unwashed bodies. Someone turned in their bed, muttering, and the faint creak of metal broke the silence. For a moment I felt small again—just another man lying awake, trying to think his way out of a corner with no door.
"Thirty thousand," I muttered into the dark. "That's too fucking much."
No one answered.
The ceiling above me groaned, a slow strain of rust and weight. I watched it until my vision blurred, until the stains turned into movement—the shape of Thea's smile forming in the dark, the sound of that laughter that didn't echo.
I turned over and pressed my face into the pillow, wishing I could peel the night off my skin. But it clung, quiet and heavy, the way guilt does.
I wasn't sure anymore if I'd escaped the mountain. Or if I'd just brought it back with me.
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May 21st 2025
Hugo Hollands, Age 24
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The morning air was cold enough to sting the skin, thick with the city's aftertaste—gasoline, yesterday's rain, fried bread. I slipped on my hoodie, pulled the hood low, and left the shelter without a word. The streets still glistened with wet patches where the light hadn't reached, and every passing car cut through the puddles like a blade through skin. My feet moved without direction. I let them.
Ebonreach looked washed out in the daylight, its filth more visible, its noise still waking. I passed the cracked mural on St. Mercer's corner, the stray dog that lived beneath the awning of the old tailor's shop, and followed the scent of warm oil and bread until I reached Christo's Deli.
From outside, it looked like a small cave carved out of the street—old tile walls, a flickering ceiling fan, red plastic chairs that had seen too many summers. The air inside was heavy with fried meat and vinegar. The faded Coca-Cola sign behind the counter had Greek lettering beneath it, bright red against the chipped white tiles: Καλώς ήρθατε. A clock hung above the back door, frozen five minutes behind real time.
Eddie was there. Of course he was. Sitting with Poppy and another one of his crew, Spencer. Poppy had a sandwich in one hand and a cigarette balanced behind her ear. Eddie leaned over the table, grinning mid-story, while Spencer chewed slowly, eyes half-shut like he'd been awake too long.
When I pushed the door open, the small bell above it gave a weak ring.
Eddie looked up first. "Oh my god," he said, laughing under his breath, "you're back."
I dragged one of the red chairs closer and sat, the legs screeching against the tile. The air smelled of fryer heat and onions. My body still felt stiff from the night, from the weight of what I'd seen.
Poppy looked at me, sandwich half-raised. "Why do you look so gloomy?"
"Hey, Spencer," I muttered.
He nodded once, mouth full. Eddie shot him a glance. "Hey, Spence. You should go back to the corner now. Someone might come asking for the goods."
Spencer raised his eyebrows, shook his head, then grabbed his paper plate and left without a word.
"Appreciate you kicking him out," I said.
Eddie shrugged. "Spill it. What happened?"
I leaned forward, elbows on the table, staring at the pattern of sauce stains and crumbs between us. "It's unbelievable. You'll have to keep an open mind, alright?"
Poppy nodded absently, still chewing, already half somewhere else.
"I went into the mountains," I said slowly. "And I met people there—or they might not even be people. I don't know. I saw things that felt real at the time, but now…" I trailed off, pressing my thumb into the table edge until it hurt. "Now I'm not sure if I imagined half of it."
Eddie's grin faded. "What do you mean, things?"
"There was this man," I said. "At first, I thought he was beaten up or something—he had these teeth, sharp, like he'd been carved wrong. His hair looked fried, brittle, like he'd been burned. But then, I blinked, and he didn't look like that at all. He looked normal. Too normal."
Poppy snorted lightly. "Yeah, must be your imagination."
"Shut it, Poppy," Eddie said, still watching me. "Go on."
"I need thirty thousand," I said. The words came out heavier than I meant, like they carried their own gravity.
Poppy stopped chewing. "What the hell?" she said, turning her head toward me. "Why?"
Eddie's eyes widened. "Thirty grand? How the hell are you supposed to get that? And in how long?"
"They didn't give me a time frame," I said. "But I'm guessing it has to be soon."
Poppy set her sandwich down, the bread half-crushed in her hand. "You're impatient, man."
"Rightfully so," I said.
The words hung there, low and quiet. The ceiling fan ticked faintly overhead, its rhythm uneven. Eddie leaned back in his chair, arms folded, his gaze sharp and skeptical. Poppy was still staring at me, her mouth slightly open, as if trying to see whether I was joking.
But I wasn't.
Eddie leaned back in his chair and glanced out the deli window. The glass was fogged at the corners, streaked with the faint drizzle still hanging in the air. "It's so weird it's still raining in spring," he said, wiping the condensation with his sleeve. His tone softened. "You hungry? Should I order you something?"
"I could use a sandwich," I said.
He turned his head and shouted toward the counter. "Christos! One sandwich!"
The man wasn't there—only the faint swaying of the plastic curtains that covered the entrance to the back room. A shadow moved behind them, vague and slow. The sound of sizzling oil carried through, and the smell of fried meat thickened the air.
"Christos!" Eddie called again, louder this time. The curtains parted, and the man appeared—broad-shouldered, middle-aged, with an apron stained from years of grease and sauce. "One for my friend here," Eddie said, pointing at me. "Whatever's good today."
Christos gave a curt nod and disappeared again, the plastic sheets flapping softly in his wake.
I rubbed my hands together, more for something to do than warmth. "What can I do to get thirty grand in, I don't know, a week?"
Eddie raised an eyebrow, a smirk ghosting across his face. "If they didn't give you a time frame, why're you the one giving yourself one?"
"Because I need to get moving," I said. "I can't let this drag. If I could take a few days off from the warehouse to make the money, fine, but that's not realistic. Twelve-hour shifts for what they pay—it's laughable. I need something fast."
Poppy, still chewing, looked up from her sandwich. "I have an idea," she said, her mouth half-full. "But it might not align with your preferences."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I can get you some clients."
"Clients as in…" I paused, already dreading the answer. "Sleep with them?"
"Yeah." She said it flatly, wiping her fingers on a napkin.
"Oh, no. No, that's not happening."
Eddie laughed under his breath. "When was the last time you got laid, anyway?"
"That's personal, Eddie."
He leaned in, grin wide. "I got laid yesterday. Your turn."
I shook my head. "No. That's not how this works. I'm not telling you."
Eddie clicked his tongue. "Then it's been a while, huh? Maybe you should take this as an opportunity."
Poppy rolled her eyes. "It's not fine and dandy like that. He doesn't get to pick and choose. It's not optional once he's in."
Eddie shrugged. "And what if your pimp—or whatever you call him—decides not to let Hugo go after? Then what?"
She leaned back, smiling faintly, almost daring him. "I can sneak him some clients. The ones who aren't satisfied with what my manager gives them. I can vouch for Hugo."
"Vouch for me?" I said, incredulous.
Poppy ignored the protest. "He'll get popular quick. I can already see it. That face, those eyes—God, those eyes. Big, glassy, like they're about to spill something. People love that kind of thing. They'd line up for you."
"Poppy," I said, exhaling sharply. "I didn't say I'm in for that."
Eddie chuckled, lighting a cigarette he wasn't supposed to. "You could always come work with us instead. Distribute. It won't get you thirty grand in a week, though."
He exhaled smoke toward the ceiling, the gray threads rising into the weak light of the fluorescent panels. The smell of burnt oil mingled with the tobacco, thick and bitter.
I slumped in the red chair, watching the condensation bead on the window. The drizzle outside hadn't stopped; it just kept whispering against the glass like it had nowhere better to go. Christos' voice echoed faintly from the back, singing something low and old in Greek.
For a moment, none of us spoke. the thrum of the refrigerator filled the silence. Poppy tore another bite of her sandwich. Eddie drummed his fingers on the table, lost in thought. And I just sat there—thinking about thirty thousand pounds, about blood, and about how both seemed impossible to get without losing something I hadn't even realized I still had.
"Um," I said after a moment, my voice quieter than I intended, "Poppy… how does that usually work? In your line of business."
She blinked at me, then reached for the bag of crisps beside her sandwich. The foil crinkled softly as she pulled one out, bit into it, and chewed with the slow confidence of someone who'd long stopped being shocked by questions.
"It depends," she said finally, dusting salt off her fingers. "Depends on who you know and who you're willing to deal with."
I waited, but she was in no rush.
"You don't just walk in and start making money, you know," she went on. "There's always a middleman—or a woman—someone who takes a cut to 'protect' you. That's your manager, or your pimp, if we're being blunt. They find you clients, book the rooms, make sure you don't get stabbed or arrested, and in return they take anywhere from forty to sixty percent of what you earn. You get the rest, if you're lucky."
She leaned back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. The faint hum of traffic outside pressed against the window. "Most of us start out working through someone else. It's safer that way. You build regulars—people who pay for consistency. They come to you because you make them feel seen, not because you're some kind of miracle in bed. After a while, if you're good, you don't need the middleman. But that's when it gets dangerous too. Independence is expensive."
Eddie was quiet now, listening, his expression tight.
Poppy glanced at me. "For men, it's different. You'd be getting male clients, yeah. There's always demand, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But it's not like the movies. Most of them aren't rich or glamorous. Some are lonely, some are curious, some just want someone to talk to while they pretend it's more. They'll pay extra if you're soft with them, polite. They don't want performance. They want… illusion."
I felt my stomach turn, but I kept my face still.
"You'd have to learn boundaries quick," she said. "When to say no, when to fake a yes. When to leave before they change their mind. It's not about sex most of the time—it's about control, theirs or yours. You sell the feeling that they're wanted, that they're not disgusting. And they pay you to keep that lie alive for a few hours."
She looked down at her sandwich, then back at me with something almost kind in her eyes. "You could do it, Hugo. People like you always could. You've got that quiet thing about you, the kind that makes people curious. But you'd have to be careful. Once you start, it's hard to get out clean."
The rain outside thickened, streaking the window. Eddie tapped his cigarette into the empty plate and muttered, "Christ, Pops, you make it sound like a sermon."
"It's work," she said simply. "The kind most people pretend doesn't exist."
I looked at my hands, the faint tremor in my fingers catching the dull light. Thirty thousand pounds. Blood. Marks. Deals.
And now this.
Something in me whispered that maybe everything I touched turned to transaction.
Eddie lit another cigarette, the tip glowing dull orange beneath the deli's jaundiced light. Smoke curled upward and vanished into the hum of the ceiling fan. He leaned back, exhaling through his nose, his eyes still fixed on me.
"Can't you just ask your cousin for the money?" he said.
The words cut through the air like the scrape of a chair against tile.
I looked up slowly. "Of course I'm not gonna take Harry's money to do that shit," I said. "I don't want anything related to Harry in my life. I told you this a hundred times now, Eddie."
"I know," he said, unbothered. "But the guy wants to help. Once again, you're taking the hard road, okay? The rocky road—just because you want to make something out of nothing for yourself. And you know what? I love that for you. I admire it, I really do. But all of us here are bound by risk, Hugo. That's the game."
He leaned forward now, elbows pressing into the count. "We don't have anyone to help us. We don't have anyone who'll stand for us. So we rely on others. I'm working under someone for distributing the goods, you get me? He gets a cut, I get what's left. It's enough to keep me going for a few days—wonderful, right? No. Not wonderful. Just survival."
Poppy kept quiet, staring at her half-eaten sandwich like it might reveal a better version of the conversation.
Eddie went on, his voice building with rhythm, like he was teaching something he didn't want to believe himself. "And Poppy here—she's got her manager keeping her safe. Takes a cut from her too, but it's to keep things clean. That's protection. That's order. You, though…" He jabbed a finger at me. "You're out here walking alone in the jungle, man. We all look for someone to protect us, someone to rely on, because we realize how small we really are. I'm not saying I'm not strong. I can handle myself, sure. But there are bigger powers out there, and you don't fuck with them."
His voice dropped lower, steadier, eyes burning faintly through the haze. "The drug ring's huge, you know that. It comes with rules, with streets mapped like veins. You got people who protect you, people you owe, people you fear. Because no matter how brave I get, I've got a brain—and I know that for every guy I knock down, someone else is standing right behind him."
He pointed his cigarette toward Poppy. "She's smart. She pays my boss to protect her from her boss. You get that? That's how it works. Layers of survival. This is a jungle, and we're not lions. We don't have those massive fangs we can just sink into the world and own it. We're scavengers, waiting for the right corpse."
He grinned without humor. "Humans are worse than animals, though. They dress it up, but they think the same way. You ever hear about that guy who used to run with us? Stavios, or whatever his name was. He'd talk about acting exercises—how in theater they tell you to pick an animal and imitate it. To find its rhythm, its way of moving, so you can build a character. He said that's how he learned people. That everyone's just pretending to be some kind of beast, playing their part. He was booming, that guy—lost it all gambling, ended up crawling to the ring like the rest of us. Now? He's got 'protection.' Because money protects you, not people. Sometimes power does too, if you're lucky."
He took a long drag and exhaled slowly, the smoke spreading like fog across the table. "And you, Hugo—you're a duck in all this. Floating around, no teeth, no claws, thinking the water won't swallow you."
I stared at him. "I don't want to be in the hierarchy."
"That's your problem," he said immediately. "You think you're above it all. You think you can survive on the bare minimum and call it persistence. But this isn't persistence—it's arrogance."
"I'm not on the minimum," I said, the words coming faster than I could control. "I'm doing my best. I'm working, I'm trying to make it out, and I'm not choosing the easy way. If you'd seen what I saw in those mountains, you wouldn't call it arrogance. I'm going in strong, and I'm going to get it. I'll show you that persistence gets you somewhere."
Eddie scoffed. "This isn't persistence. This is pure stupidity."
I turned toward Poppy, my pulse still hammering. "I'm going to do it, Poppy. Bring in the clients. I'm ready."
She froze mid-breath, her hand still on the table. "Let's just think about it," she said carefully. "Because this can get bad sometimes, okay? Really bad. Think it through."
"I have," I said. "I've thought about it thoroughly. I'm going to do it."
Eddie slammed his hand against the table in front of us, the plates rattling. "You're just self-destructing."
"And you're self-preserving?" I shot back. "You think you're doing better? Look, I know you've been on the streets longer than I have, you've seen worse, sure. But this—this is my way. Let me do it my way."
He leaned back in his chair, lips pressed tight, then let out a low laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, alright. I'm not gonna tie you to some pole and stop you. The world's your playground, right? Go jump on a trampoline or something, for all I care."
The rain outside had slowed to a mist. Christos clattered pans in the back, the smell of grilled bread filling the deli. Poppy stared down at the table, her jaw tense, her hands twisting the paper napkin until it tore. Eddie smoked in silence, the ember burning steady, small, relentless.
I sat there between them, my pulse still roaring in my ears, thinking that maybe he was right—this was self-destruction. But maybe that was what it took to finally feel alive.
The phone buzzed against the table, sharp and sudden. The sound cut through the air between us, breaking whatever uneasy quiet had settled after Eddie's words. I glanced at the screen—Harry Doyle.
For a moment, I just stared at his name. It looked strange, foreign even, as if it belonged to another life. The deli light reflected off the screen, dull and jaundiced, tinting everything the same sickly hue.
I swiped to answer. "Hey, Harry."
His voice came through, bright and exasperated all at once. "Finally, you picked up. I've been trying to respect your wishes and not show up, but you're making it hard."
There was a noise behind him—traffic, or maybe the rustle of a window curtain—and for a second, I could see it in my head: his place, neat as always, sunlight spilling across the table, his phone probably balanced against a cup of coffee. A life with order. A life that didn't smell like cigarettes and stale oil.
"Let's meet up now, if you're free," I said before I could talk myself out of it.
There was a pause on the other end, a faint shift in his breathing. "You aren't at work?"
"No. I called in sick today."
"Alright then," he said. His tone softened, as if he'd been waiting for this, careful not to break the moment. "Come over."
The line clicked off, and I sat there a moment longer, phone still pressed to my ear, the dial tone humming like a faint heartbeat.
Eddie looked at me sideways. "Harry?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
Poppy arched a brow, half-curious, half-warning, but didn't say anything.
The rain had stopped. Outside, the street was damp and shining, the puddles holding the dull reflections of neon signs. I pushed back my chair, its legs screeching faintly against the tile, and stood.
I didn't feel hungry anymore.
As I stepped toward the door, the bell above it trembled when I pushed through. The air outside was cold and clean, the kind that stung a little when you breathed too deeply. Behind me, I could still hear Eddie's voice—something low, muttered, half-lost in the clatter of Christos's pans.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and started walking, thinking how strange it was that even when you try to cut people out, their voices find a way to follow you anyway.