The rain hadn’t stopped.By the time Leon returned to the warehouse, his uniform clung to him like a second skin, soaked through with cold and humiliation. The night shift lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows across the empty loading bay.His steps felt heavier than they should.His chest tighter than it had ever been.He moved like a man carrying a mountain.---The storage room—his “home”—was dim and damp. A thin mattress lay in the corner, barely better than cardboard. Leon shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it, sliding down slowly until he was sitting on the floor.His body ached, but the real pain wasn’t physical.It pulsed from somewhere deeper… a place he didn’t know could hurt this much.He dropped the envelope—the final inheritance papers—onto the ground. It landed with a soft thud, like dirt hitting a coffin.Leon stared at it.“That’s it,” he breathed. “They’ve completely erased me.”His voice sounded foreign—even to himself.He had lived his whole

The storm eased sometime after midnight, but the cold didn’t lift.It wrapped itself around Leon like a second skin as he dragged himself across the cracked pavement, still shaken by the strange flashes of light and sound that had echoed through his mind.Had he imagined it?Was it a hallucination from exhaustion?The rainwater dripping from his hair made it hard to think.Harder to breathe.He didn’t go back to the warehouse.He couldn’t—not yet.Instead, his feet carried him toward the old iron bridge crossing the river at the edge of the industrial district. A lonely place. Quiet. Forgotten. Like him.By the time he reached the midpoint, the storm had died completely, leaving only the hiss of wind over the dark water.Leon gripped the railing with both hands, knuckles white.The river below was black—so dark it swallowed the reflection of the city lights. The current moved slowly, like something alive, waiting.He stared down at it.For a long time… he didn’t move.---His shoulder