A man in his early thirties walked out of an office. He was looking sad and defeated. He walked silently to his desk, which was already set and packed up. Everything that belonged to him was put inside a box—and not just any box, a box that was already in a bad state.
His name was Eric, and he had just been fired from a job that he'd been working ever since he came out of college. Not that it was the job that he wasted his whole life of four years acing and always coming on top of his class as number one; this was the job that he didn't like. Yet, though it paid him peanuts, it still enabled him to have the privilege of paying rent, having food, and most of the important essentials.
It was a big office floor, and everyone had stopped working the second he stepped out of the big office. He didn't need to talk to anyone, and before he even reached for his own desk, every single person already knew that he was fired.
Murmurs and whispers were the only thing that he heard, but for someone, instead of showing off how sad and broken he was, he pretended like he couldn't hear them.
Eric marched out from the floor which was on the third floor, and through all that, he managed to avoid making contact with the gazes of his former workmates.
He walked out of the office in broad daylight. If time was calculated, it would be safe to say that it was around midday. Though he didn't allow himself to show pain or suffering in front of the others, the moment his foot stepped outside, it was a different story.
In an infested city of a crowd of people always in a hurry like there is a rush hour deal somewhere, Eric took a few steps forward, turned around, and looked up the floor where he had spent his life only for him to see another person coming to take his place in his desk.
He took a deep breath. As much as that was unfair, there was still nothing he could do about it, so he continued onward.
His box wasn't heavy or anything, but it was still hard to carry, and he was struggling with it. As stated before, the box wasn't in the right state. It was one of those boxes that looked like they had just been taken out of the basement, forgotten, that had been poured on by rain and was now tearing apart.
As he was walking, he had a paper given to him earlier. It's just that he didn't bother to take time and looked at it cause he thought that it wasn't something that important; it was just a resignation letter.
After walking for who knows how long, since he didn't want to waste money catching a taxi and he'd never been a train person since he was an introvert, the box was getting kinda heavy to carry now. The tape that had been holding it together was now getting loose and letting go.
In the quiet side of the city, he was walking all alone. Sure, there were people walking by too, but they were a certain number that can be calculated. It was a busy site, though thanks to the construction site was there, but no one was working there cause the city stated it as unstable and unsafe to work.
Eric was like maybe a mile away from the site, and from where he was standing, he could see everything that was happening. He stopped for a second and placed his box down, then he decompressed himself to take a look at his resignation letter.
To his surprise, it wasn't just a resignation letter, but it was also a notice letter that someone served as a letter of being sued.
He read it carefully cause at first he thought that must have been tired from walking all the way under this scorching sun.
"Wait a minute, I'm being sued for real?" He read the letter thoroughly.
Everything that he needed to know was written on that letter. Eric was being sued for something that he didn't know but was also fired for, which in honest truth he was actually falsely accused.
Eric was being sued for ten million dollars cause the company believed that he actually leaked some of his company's critical information, which is something new to him. But without even taking an investigation and since it was his computer that was used in the process, they just blamed him.
He couldn't believe his eyes cause this was all sudden and surreal to him.
"First they fired me without doing proper investigation, and now they have the indecency to sue me for ten million dollars? Sons of bitches!" Eric crushed the letter and tore it.
In this case, he had every single right to be mad, but he was also a meek person so he couldn't stay mad too long. He just calmed himself down, picked up his box, and was ready to walk back home.
Yet, there was an incident getting ready to take place in the same unstable and unsafe construction that he had planned that by all means he will avoid. A young boy was busy running around and playing superhero.
He was all alone, and from the way he was chuckling and giggling, the boy was having fun. And he wasn't even that old; he was young, maybe around the age between five and six years. He seemed unstoppable, and from the looks of it, he was in the zone.
The boy was even swinging by the bars that looked more like monkey bars. He had a stuffed monkey that it is safe to say was like his sidekick. As he was playing around and running around on the second floor,
Eric was almost closer to walking by the site when he heard a sound that also scared him. Since this was an abandoned site that had an unfinished building, Eric heard the bars getting loose and the floors cracking up.
He looked up cause he wanted to see where those sounds were coming from so he could have enough time to move out of the way, and he did that. Eric moved out of the way in the nick of time as he ran to the other side which was safer.
But here was the thing: as he was running to the other side, his box finally loosened and everything that was inside poured and fell down.
"Fuck!" He realized a second later.
He looked at his box and saw it was empty. Normally, he wouldn't have cared about that, but now here was the thing: every belonging of his that was most essential from his apartment keys, phone, and wallet that had his last cash and obviously bank cards and ID card.
He turned around and saw all those things, but instead of risking his life and going under a structure that was going to collapse any second from now, he had common sense.
And he took time to decide on what next course of action should he take.
Obviously, it wasn't something that was going to be easy, but he didn't realize that while he was taking his sweet time to think on what to do, he was actually wasting time because the structure was slowly getting ready to fall.
"You know what? There's no reason for me to risk my life on things that I can replace, but where will I also get the money to replace them since I've just been fired and sued?" He kept his eyes locked on his belongings.
After him wasting minutes thinking, the structure finally reached its own breaking point and it just started to crumble.
And the young boy screamed his lungs out like a little girl.
"Help!" The boy screamed out.
Luckily, Eric heard the boy screaming, but from the scream, he assumed differently.
He first looked around trying to pinpoint where that girlish scream was coming from, and that's when he saw a stuffed monkey falling.
"I'm coming, little girl!" He shouted as his own two feet moved on their own and he ran towards the crumbling structural building.
It was so foggy and misty it really made it hard to see where the child was, but Eric was in the zone. It must have been the adrenaline cause he didn't even need to see where the boy was; he just followed the scream.
The boy screamed once again, and this time the scream was more like a warning scream that he was about to reach the ground, and if that's the case, it wouldn't be a good one and the boy wouldn't have survived.
Something else shifted in Eric when he heard that last scream.
"Damnit." He suddenly picked up his speed.
Then out of nowhere, he leaped forward through the dust, unsure whether he was successful in saving the boy or not.
Out of nowhere, Eric landed on the other side where the building hadn't collapsed yet, holding the boy in his arms.
"Are you okay, kid?" He had covered the boy with his jacket, and he opened it to check if he was okay or not.
The good news is that the boy was safe in his arms. He just looked at Eric and just cried.
"Don't worry, we are out of danger and we are safe." Eric promised the boy.
But he was wrong. The side that was supposed to be the safer side proved to be the complete opposite.
When that side of the building collapsed too, and this time it headed straight for them.
"Darn it, kid, we have to move out of the way." Eric said to the boy.
The boy somehow trusted Eric, and he wrapped his arms around his neck.
"Hold on, this is about to be uncomfortable." He assured the boy.
Then Eric attempted to get up and move out of the way only for him to realize that he couldn't anymore.
"What the?" He was confused, so he looked back.
His leg didn't respond to his command no matter how much he tried to move it; at the end of the day, it was pointless.
He had no choice but to wait until the dust settled, and that's when he realized it. And though he couldn't feel the pain thanks to the adrenaline rush, Eric discovered that his leg had been hit by a steel bar.
Instead of crying or screaming in pain, all that was important was the safety of the little boy.
"Alright, kid, it looks like we won't be able to move away from here, so how about you get under me and cover your ears and eyes and use this jacket, okay?" He looked at the boy with sad eyes.
"Why aren't we running?" The boy asked, his eyes full of fear.
Eric looked up and acknowledged that even if they were to run away, it wouldn't make any difference.
He turned his attention to the boy. "Don't worry about it, we'll be safe. When I tell you to cover yourself, you do it, okay?" Though he was also afraid, he managed to share a smile so that he wouldn't make the boy be afraid.
The boy didn't respond; he just saw this angelic smile coming from this stranger who risked his life to save him, eyes full of tears.
As the structure fell to him, on his last breath, Eric managed to shout:
"Now, kid!"
The boy did exactly as he was told; he covered himself with the jacket, and Eric realized that he needed to do something fast in order to avoid getting the boy in danger.
So he pushed himself away from the boy and he stood up and hovered around him, and the collapse fell on him.
Clanging sounds were heard alongside sounds of something piercing through something, and when all of that was now over,
Small dust remained and the boy uncovered himself.
His hand was blocking his face.
"Are you okay, mister?" The boy lowered his hand.
To his surprise, he wasn't hurt at all, but Eric on the other hand, he had steel bars pierced all over his body.
"Nah, kid, don't worry, I'm okay. I just need to take a little nap." Eric was coughing blood and covered in blood all over.
He knew that if he fell and died near the boy, it would scar him for life, so he walked away from the boy and he sat near one of the crumbled pieces of the structure.
He sat down, still in pain.
"I guess this is it, huh. Well, I'm not going to complain." He said to himself.
Then he closed his eyes.
And took his last breath.