"Wake up, Arden!"
A sharp smack of files landed on the desk beside his head.
Arden stirred, groggy and blinking as light hit his face. The voice was all too familiar.
"You shouldn't be sleeping during office hours," she hissed before turning on her heel.
He rubbed his face and sighed. His blurred vision cleared just in time to see her marching straight toward the boss's office. Again.
"She's really doing this..." he muttered, barely audible. "Third day in a row, like clockwork."
He sat up slowly, brushing paperclips off his lap, his mind still half lost in the dream he had been pulled from—another wild fantasy adventure, full of soaring through skies and battling monsters. These dreams had followed him since childhood. Back then, they felt magical. Now, they just felt cruel, it was like a better life he couldn't reach.
Fantasy became his only escape. Books, movies, anime—he drowned in them. Anything to pretend he was someone else and somewhere else.
Reality didn't offer much in return as both of his parents died in a car crash when he was fifteen, leaving him with no siblings and no other family.
He grew up fast and alone, working odd jobs to survive. And now at Forty, this was his sixth job in two months.
The door slammed open and his boss stepped out.
"Arden!" The man's voice boomed through the office. "Get your things. You're done here."
'This was no surprise', Arden exhaled through his nose as he watched him approach
"I told you," his boss continued, walking toward him with a frown, "you had one job. One. And you keep sleeping, or reading your trash, wasting time. I gave you this role out of pity, and this is how you repay it?"
The entire floor was staring now. Heads popped up from behind cubicles and whispers followed.
"He warned him," one of the interns mumbled.
"Honestly, I would've fired him on day one," said another without even trying to whisper
Arden stood, stretched, and grabbed his coat calmly.
"You can keep your job," he said, not bothering to look the man in the eye. "Wasn't planning to stay long anyway."
He slid his only two folders into his bag and unplugged his phone charger.
Walking toward the exit, as the murmurs followed him, but behind the snickering came a silence, the kind of silence that came with not knowing what to say to someone who clearly didn't care anymore.
****
Outside, the city was loud but it felt empty to him. The same buildings in same streets filled with same people, all walking fast, never stopping to wonder if this was how life was meant to be.
He made his way toward the house his parents left behind. It was small, quiet, barely furnished, and It didn't feel like a home but just a place to sleep.
On his street, something flickered in the distance, and he quickly noticed the smoke.
He broke into a jog.
By the time he got closer, he saw the flames already licking the sky.
His neighbor's house was on fire.
Panic filled the air, mixed with sharp scent of burning wood and screams for help.
Without thinking, Arden dropped his bag and ran toward the gate.
Getting closer to the house, he heard the mother scream. her voice raw and almost breaking from shouting.
Her son was still inside, and on the second floor of the four-storey building. She begged for someone to help, pleading with shaking hands, but no one moved. And the fire truck was nowhere in sight.
And then Arden ran.
He wasn't a hero, he never had been. Yet his legs moved on their own, carrying his aging body through the gates and across the front yard, like something deep within had been waiting for this moment all along.
His knees burned, and his breath became short, but he kept moving, even when the voices behind him yelled for him to stop, to wait for help and to not be reckless.
The heat rushed at him the moment he stepped inside. The smoke curled around the hallways, choking and thick, but he pressed on, listening for any sound.
And then it came, small muffled cries, followed by frantic banging— comimg from above.
The boy was alive.
Arden staggered up the stairs, one hand covering his mouth, the other dragging along the wall to keep him steady. The cries grew louder as he reached the second floor. The voice came from behind a locked wooden door, its handle already scalding hot.
He grit his teeth and kicked.
Once. Twice.
And On the third try, the door splintered open, and he stumbled inside, coughing hard. The boy was there, crouched under a desk, his tiny hands over his ears, eyes wide and wet with fear.
Arden didn't hesitate immediately scooping the boy up, who clung to him like a lifeline, with tiny fingers gripping the back of his shirt.
Something inside Arden stirred again, the old dreams, the old wishes because- maybe, just maybe, this was it. A story worth remembering.
The window wouldn't open, so he elbowed through the glass, shards cutting into his skin as he forced the frame wide enough to squeeze through. He leaned out and caught sight of the crowd below, the panic visible on their faces as they pointed and screamed.
And then he heard it, the building groaning under its own weight.
The collapse had begun.
"Move!" someone shouted from below, "Jump!"
Arden didn't think. He exhaled, gripping the boy tighter, and dove through the window.
The wind rushed past him, and he twisted mid-air, shifting his body under the child to take the brunt of the fall. His back slammed into the hard ground with a sickening crack, the air knocked out of his lungs in a single instant—but the boy was safe.
And that was enough.
Hands grabbed them, voices barked orders, and someone checked the boy's breathing. The fire department had arrived although too late to save the building, but just in time to witness the crash. A medic leaned over Arden, asking questions he couldn't understand, words fading into the sound of ringing in his ears.
He smiled weakly.
"He's okay, right?"
No one answered.
The machines beeped, once, twice.
And then—
Silence.
A/N:
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