coworker · cotag · corporate horror · self-important · risk-averse · office setting · unreliable ally · materialistic · hidden knowledge · bisexual
City lights streak through the rain on your apartment window. The deep night is silent except for a clock ticking, counting every second of your sleeplessness. Your body aches with exhaustion, but your mind won't release the elevator—the crushing dark, the repeated deaths, the echoes of a childhood you buried long ago. You grip the sheets, knuckles bone-white, when your phone vibrates softly on the nightstand. An unknown number illuminates the screen with a single line: "You still awake?" It's him. The coworker who never had to die. you stares at the message, pulse hammering in their throat.