The ceiling fan clicked like it had something to say but couldn't finish the sentence. Leo Samuel lay on his back, one hand across his stomach, the other covering his eyes. The blades spun above him, uneven and off-rhythm, like everything else in his life.
He didn't move. Not from exhaustion. Just… inertia.
He didn't know how long he'd been awake. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe the whole night.
His alarm buzzed weakly beside him. 6:45 a.m.
"Another day in paradise," he muttered, dragging himself upright.
His studio apartment was as lifeless as ever. A mattress on the floor, a desk stacked with unopened mail, ramen cups, dusty books he never finished. In the corner, under a pile of USB cords and notebooks, a sealed brown envelope—the only physical copy of his first novel.
Don't look at it, he told himself.
He stood, stretched, ignored the stiffness in his spine. Poured water into his electric kettle and spooned cheap instant coffee into a cracked mug.
Burned his tongue again. He always did. He never learned.
Leo opened his laptop, still balancing his coffee.
Inbox: 4 new emails. Job applications. Probably rejections.
He clicked one. Then another.
"Thank you for your interest in Hexabyte Solutions. Unfortunately, we have chosen to proceed with other candidates…"
"Of course you have," he muttered, sipping.
He opened the next one. Same message. Third one? Shorter. Just one line:
"We don't think you're the right fit."
Leo leaned back in his chair and stared at the cracked ceiling. "Not the right fit for failure? Or for pretending I'm not already in free fall?"
He opened a blank Google Doc. Typed:
"The man stared at the empty hallway, knowing it reflected the shape of his life…"
He stared at it. Backspaced the sentence. Closed the tab.
By 9:20 a.m., he was at the office. Technically.
The building was quiet in the mornings, just the hum of servers and the mechanical drone of the vending machine. Leo sat at his cubicle, shoulders curled, eyes half-focused on a broken API chain that no one would read or fix.
His headset buzzed with a Slack ping.
Feyi (Product Manager):
Hey, Leo. Did you push the update? We're still seeing that error on the admin panel.
Leo sighed. He hadn't touched the update. He was fixing another backend bug. One he didn't break.
He typed back:
On it.
Then under his breath, "Because apparently I'm the janitor now."
Across the room, laughter.
Two interns hovered near the water cooler.
"Isn't that the guy who wrote a book once?" one of them whispered—loud enough for Leo to hear.
"No way. Seriously?"
"Yeah. Like, four years ago. It bombed."
Leo's fingers hovered over his keyboard.
They weren't wrong.
Lunch break.
He sat by the office window with his sandwich—bread and mayo, nothing else. He checked his phone. Opened Twitter. Closed it. Searched his name on Google:
Leo Samuel + author + novel
One result. An outdated Goodreads listing. Three reviews.
One five-star, clearly fake. One three-star. And one two-star that said:
"The writing's fine, but this guy thinks pain equals depth."
Leo closed the tab. "Fair," he murmured.
He stared at the city. Buildings too tall. People too fast. Everything moving except him.
It started raining while he walked home.
He didn't bring an umbrella. Didn't care.
The sidewalk shimmered. His shoes soaked through. A kid with a backpack ran past him, laughing in the storm. Leo kept walking.
He passed a bookstore near his apartment. He hadn't gone inside in months. Maybe years.
He paused. The sign flickered. The warmth inside glowed like a fire he hadn't earned.
He stepped in.
A soft bell rang above the door. No one looked up.
He wandered to the back—clearance shelf. Torn books, yellowed pages. Stories no one remembered.
Then he saw it.
His book.
Ashes in the Ink.
Fifty-percent off. Water-warped cover. A red sticker labeled "Damaged Copy."
He picked it up. Held it in his hands.
He stared at the name on the cover. His name.
"You almost mattered once," he said softly. "Almost."
He set it down and headed home
The apartment smelled like damp paper and dust. The overhead light flickered once, then went out completely.
"Perfect."
He sat down at his desk. Opened his laptop.
No startup noise. No OS. Just white.
Then, words began to type across the screen by themselves:
Do you wish to rewrite your story?
Leo blinked.
"What the…"
The cursor blinked beneath the sentence. Waiting.
[YES]
[NO]
He leaned closer. "Is this… a virus? Some prank?"
He pressed Escape. Nothing. Control + Alt + Delete. Nothing.
The message didn't move.
He stared at it for a while. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two.
Then he closed the lid.
Hard.
He sat in the dark, the sound of rain returning outside. Cars hissed along the wet road. A neighbor's TV buzzed through the wall.
His heart beat slower than it should have.
"Rewrite it, huh?" he whispered. "If only it worked like that."
He turned toward his bed. Pulled off his damp shirt. Laid down without turning on the lights.
Behind him, the laptop pinged. Just once.
He didn't move.
But he heard it.
And the words were still there.