AIN: The Eyes of Deception

The smell of stale coffee and the pungent aroma of cheap perfume in the open office space was enough to make Arel Virel feel like his head was about to split. In front of him, the computer screen flickered lazily, as if mocking the sales targets he never reached. However, that was not the main problem. The main problem was standing right behind his chair, laughing his head off while slapping Arel on the shoulder way too hard.

"Hey, Arel! You still alive? I thought you’d starved to death by now since you never earned a single commission this month!"

That was Riko’s voice. The office golden boy, the type of guy with a smug face and a smile that made anyone want to punch him until his features were dented. Riko dropped a stack of messy files right on top of Arel’s keyboard.

"Deal with this, chump. I’ve got a lunch date with an important client. Don’t touch the crucial parts, or you’ll mess them up like you messed up your life," Riko mocked again, this time followed by laughter from the other colleagues around the cubicle.

Arel clenched his fists under the desk until his knuckles turned white. "This isn’t my job, Riko. I have my own pile of work to do," Arel replied, trying to keep his voice steady even though a wave of emotion began to crawl up from his chest.

"Oh, really? So what? You going to tattle to the boss? Go ahead," Riko leaned down, bringing his face close to Arel’s ear. "This world is only for winners, Arel. You? You’re just the office punching bag. Besides, watching you suffer is the only entertainment I get in this place. Why don’t you just disappear entirely? So the rest of us don’t have to look at your loser face every day."

Riko turned around, walking away while whistling a casual tune. Arel could only stare at his back with boiling hatred. It felt like poison was creeping through his veins. His heart beat wildly, no longer from nerves, but from an unbearable rage.

"Why doesn’t he just break?" Arel whispered softly, his voice nearly drowned out by the sound of the office printer. "Why does a piece of trash like him get to stand there and step on everyone else? If only, if only the world could see how rotten he is. I want him destroyed. Right this second, I want him out of my sight!"

Arel did not blink. He stared intently at Riko’s back as he walked toward the elevator. For a moment, the air around Arel felt heavy and static, like the friction of electricity ready to strike. There was a strange urge, a subtle pull behind his eyes, as if two entities were peeking through his pupils, absorbing that hatred and turning it into a command.

Riko pressed the elevator button. The metal doors opened. As Riko stepped inside, suddenly, without warning, without any logical reason, the steel elevator cable above let out a loud, clanging metallic bang.

CRACK!

"What was that?" someone shouted.

Arel stood up straight, his eyes wide. The elevator Riko had just entered dropped instantly. The sound of iron crashing against the bottom of the building shook the entire floor. Screams echoed from the lobby. Arel felt a cold chill pierce the back of his neck, but his feet were frozen to the floor. It was impossible. That elevator had just undergone routine maintenance last week. There was no way the cable could just snap.

Arel’s hands shook. He ran toward the elevator, ignoring the panicked screams of his colleagues. When he reached the gaping edge of the elevator shaft, he saw a sight that made him nauseated. Riko lay among the metal wreckage and tangled cables. The man was still breathing, but his body’s position, it was horrific. His right leg was pinned at a wrong angle, and his face was covered in blood from the shattered ceiling glass.

Riko looked up toward Arel, who stood at the edge of the pit. Their eyes met. Fear, pain, and confusion radiated from Riko’s eyes. He couldn’t speak, he could only groan softly.

"A, Arel..." Riko’s voice choked.

Arel took a step back. "It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything," he muttered, his voice breaking. "I just, I just hated you. I didn’t ask for this."

But deep down in his heart, a small voice whispered: But you did want it, didn’t you?

Arel ran out of the office, leaving behind the chaos, the approaching ambulance sirens, and the questioning stares of his coworkers. He ran aimlessly until he finally reached his cramped apartment. He was gasping for air, and cold sweat soaked his shirt. He locked the door with hands that were shaking violently.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it," he cursed at himself. He walked to the bathroom sink, washing his face with refreshing cold water, trying to wash away the memory of Riko’s strangely folded leg.

When he lifted his head and looked at his reflection in the mirror, he froze.

His eyes looked different. His pupils were slightly dilated, and there was an unnatural tint around his irises. However, that wasn’t what made him almost scream.

Right behind his shoulder in the mirror reflection, in a room that should have been empty, he saw something.

There were two shadows.

One shadow on the left appeared to have very smooth contours, almost glowing, with a very calm expression, as if watching a masterpiece. However, the shadow on the right, that was the one that made Arel’s blood run cold.

It was a silhouette that looked like spilled ink, with the corners of its mouth curled into a thin, sharp grin, full of cold satisfaction. The shadow seemed to be whispering into the ear of Arel’s reflection.

Arel spun around quickly, hitting the wall behind him. There was no one there. His bathroom was completely empty. There was only him and his own terrified reflection in the mirror.

He looked back at the mirror, gasping for breath. The shadow was still there, inside the mirror, standing tall behind his shoulder. This time, the figure with the cynical smile slowly raised its hand, as if pointing toward Arel’s chest, and the shadow’s mouth moved silently.

It’s only the beginning, the shadow’s lips formed the words.

Arel fell to the cold tile floor, clutching his head with both hands. "This is a dream," he shouted in frustration. "This is just a delusion! Work stress, Riko’s accident, this is just a coincidence! Just a very bad coincidence!"

But as he looked at the mirror reflection once more, the smiling shadow was no longer just standing still. The figure began to crawl out from the edges of the mirror, its dark fingers starting to touch the air in the real world, leaving black soot-like marks that scorched the air.

Arel realized one thing with horror. The world around him no longer looked the same. The lines of reality were starting to crack, like glass that had just been hit hard, and behind those cracks, he could see that he was no longer alone.

Something had just woken up inside of him. And that something had no intention of stopping until all his desires, even the darkest ones, were made real.

"Who are you?" Arel whispered, his voice barely audible in the room that suddenly felt much colder than usual.

The grin on the shadow’s face widened. For the first time, he heard a voice, a whisper that echoed not in his ears, but directly inside his nervous system.

"We are your translators, Arel. And we have only just begun to translate what is truly in your heart."

The bathroom light flickered violently, then exploded into tiny shards, leaving Arel in total darkness, accompanied by two pairs of eyes that were now watching his every move from behind the shadows.