DAY 1:
The room sat still, dead. A single monitor's glow cut through the gloom, washing over the sweat-slicked walls a sterile, unforgiving light Veyth lay motionless in a nest of fast-food wrappers, a king of decay atop a throne of stained sheets. The flickering screen cast jagged shadows over empty chip bags, crumpled energy drinks, a keyboard crusted with orange dust, and the rest of the room that was nothing more than a wasteland. An anime played: a bright-haired hero shouted soundlessly about courage while Veyth's hollow eyes tracked pixels without seeing, Veyth stopped the video with soulless eyes, lazily dragging his mouse over to open the saved tab...
Click
Another tab opened. A job board.
[SENIOR AI ARCHITECT - $220K]
Requirements: Neural net optimization, adaptive code mastery.
He'd pioneered that. At nineteen. His thesis had made corporations salivate. Now? He'd bet they wouldn't even look at his code, but he'd check if he'd had a chance either way.
[POSITION FILLED BY SYNTHMIND AI]
The rejection auto-emailed itself. No human had even glanced at his resume. Veyth's hand trembled, not with rage or any other crushing emotion, but with the weight of irrelevance, that he'd never be able to do anything ever again. He reached for a half-eaten burger, cold grease congealing on the wrapper. The meat tasted of cardboard and salt. He chewed slowly, methodically, his blood shot eyes snapped to the clock, its tick seeming to stretch an eternity, as if performing a funeral rite for his golden days.
Outside, rain tapped against the window like bony fingers, reaching ever closer.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Three days' worth of storm clouds hung low, suffocating and strangling what life left out of the city.
He didn't notice, nor did he mind.
Veyth closed the tab, closing his computer, he shuffled his way to big food stained bed, and collapsed on it without any care.
DAY 2:
Dawn leaked through the blinds like diluted sewage, striping Veyth's face like the sun over a desert. He hadn't slept. The anime's glow still haunted his retinas, that screaming hero, fists raised against a world that would have given him victory even if he didn't raise a finger. Bullshit. Pure, market-tested bullshit.
His phone buzzed, his head snapped towards it, a notification flashed upon the screen he watched as it skittered across a pizza box fossilized by grease, he stood up with dread, he picked it up, and read the notification the flashed on it:[SYNTHMIND AI: Your coding profile is now OBSOLETE.]
He hurled the device against the wall. It clattered, screen spider-webbing. "Obsolescence." The word tasted like battery acid. They'd stolen his neural-net algorithms, his lifework, and now spat on the corpse and he thinks they'd do more if they could, but there was nothing he could do, he was a sitting duck. so he lumbered to the fridge, opening it with a creek.
The fridge hummed a death rattle. Inside: congealed curry, half a liter of fluorescent energy drink, and a single withered lime. He grabbed the drink. The cap resisted, a petty rebellion. He wrenched it open. Fizz sprayed like arterial mist, stinging his eyes.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A faint voice muffled by the door shouted loudly, seems like the landlord: "I swear to fucking god! You haven't paid in 3 damn months, I'll kick you out if you don't pay by the end of the week!" Veyth stared at the now open drink, he didn't care, why would he? Why would he pay, if the world itself made him work to death for no pay, either way, he had no way to pay, he had no money, he only barely worked, gathering money from his connections or experience from his glory days, but he went to his computer, he feels like he should try at least.
He opened a job board. Scrolled.
[DATA ARCHIVIST - $18/hr]
Requirements: File sorting, basic digitization.
Beneath him. Far beneath him. He typed, fingers jabbing keys like they'd personally betrayed him: "I architected adaptive-learning matrices while you peddled filing cabinets. Pay reflects worth. $200K for all the work or don't waste my time." SEND.
The energy drink burned his throat. Synthetic citrus. Chemical rush, he finished it. Outside, rain hissed against the window. It sounded like static. Like the white noise between channels where nothing meant anything.
He pulled up his app, trying to get into his AI – The code repository flashed: [ACCESS DENIED. PROPERTY OF NEUROTECH SOLUTIONS...]
His own creation, locked away. Optimized. Perfected. Erased.
A notification bloomed:
[MOTHER: Please call. I'm worried-]
Three dots pulsed. Waiting. He swiped it away. Worried? About what? The genius reduced to shouting at cartoons? Let her worry. Let them all choke on it.
He reached for the curry. The container slipped, smearing orange grease across his keyboard – before clattering to the floor. He left it. The smell of rancid coconut milk thickened the air.
Rain drummed harder. The room dimmed. Somewhere, in another world, heroes kept fighting.
Veyth didn't fight, nor did he move, he threw away the keyboard, it was worthless now, just like him.
DAY 3:
The monitor's blue glow carved crypt-like shadows into Veyth's room. Rain lashed the boarded window, each drop a drumbeat counting down to nothing. On screen, an anime hero shouted, pixels blazing with impossible resolve:
"GIVE UP? I'LL PROTECT THEM ALL!"
Veyth's laughter was a dry rasp. Protect? He shoved aside a fossilized pizza box, grease staining his fingertips. You protect nothing. You're NOTHING, and never will be... he shut the monitor off, he could not stand himself, if they were nothing, why would he care, if they were nothing, why was he yelling at them, not like they would hear, he pushed away the though, and stared at himself in the turned-off monitor
His reflection haunted the dark monitor: puffy eyes buried in bruised sockets, hair matted into oily ropes against his forehead. A chin lost in swollen flesh. Pathetic. He got his courage and turned on the computer, he had to use his hands for the keyboard stopped working, he pulled up his profile with shaking hands, the words on the screen, "deleted profile" hurt him more than a knife, the words blurring and burning. His magnum opus. Stolen. Repackaged by machines that didn't bleed, he turned the anime back on, he hated himself, watching something, yelling at it, rather than actually do something.
"PAIN MAKES US STRONGER!" screamed the anime hero, bloodied but unbowed.
Veyth slammed the laptop shut, he was stuck, watching something he did not want to watch. Silence swallowed the room, broken only by the drip of the leaking faucet, the beat of the window getting hit by that rain, the water dripping from his ceiling, and the wet rattle of his own breath. His chest tightened, a phantom fist squeezing his sternum. He pressed a hand to it, fingers trembling.
Outside, thunder shook the building's bones. For a second, the walls seemed to breathe, closing in, peeling back. Veyth didn't notice. He was already reaching for the cold fries congealing in their cardboard coffin. Salt. Fat. Static. Anything to fill the hollow where ambition used to burn, where his soul used to burn.
DAY 4:
Rain lashed the grime-caked window, casting liquid shadows over Veyth's tomb of a room. He woke not to an alarm, but to the drip-drip-drip of curry-stained rainwater seeping from the ceiling into a bucket beside his bed, he remembers now, a horrible fix from his first days in this ragged, torn-down apartment,. The air hung thick with the stench of old grease, damp cardboard, and something vaguely metabolic.
His reflection glared back from the turned off touchscreen: puffy eyes buried in bruised sockets, hair matted to his scalp like oil-soaked rope, he reluctantly turned it back on. A notification pulsed, JOB REJECTION #38. "After careful review, we've pursued candidates whose skills align more closely…" He swiped it away, fingertips leaving smudges on the glass.
The fridge hummed its classic death rattle. Outside, the city's gray sprawl blurred behind rain-streaked glass. Somewhere, people moved with purpose. Fools, he thought. Purpose was a noose. He pulled on sweatpants crusted stiff at the knees, fabric biting into swollen thighs. The waistband dug deep, a tourniquet against the ache building behind his ribs.
Chips. He needed salt. Fat. Static for the noise in his head. Keys lay buried under pizza coupons. As he bent, a spark of pain—sharp, final—lanced through his sternum. He froze, breath catching. For three heartbeats, the world narrowed to that single, screaming point behind his ribs.
Then, it passed. Always passing.
He straightened, keys in hand. The doorknob felt alien, cold. Beyond it, the hallway light flickered, a strobe glimpse of peeling wallpaper and distant thunder, but, he was too afraid, too afraid to go outside, he felt bad at those words, a person too afraid to go outside? What a useless fool, but, he was real, he had to bare everything the world had on him, he threw the keys on the pizza coupons, and jumped on the bed, and wept himself to sleep, his first sleep in ages...
DAY 5:
The bucket overflowed.
Dirty water seeped across the floor, soaking into moldy pizza boxes. Veyth hadn't moved in 17 hours. His stomach growled, a raw, hollow sound in the silence. No chips. No burgers. Nothing. The ceiling dripped like a ticking clock. he'd have to go to the store today, he had to get food.
He forced himself upright. Joints screamed. His reflection in a cracked microwave door: greasy hair, bloodshot eyes, skin pale as uncooked dough. Pathetic. He fumbled for car keys on the expired pizza coupons, he stood before the doorknob, his hands shaking with fear, he got ready, pushing down his fear and opening the door, the air felt, distant, cold, trapping, but he walked on, he walked into his car, turned it on, and left, the store lit up ahead, its light burning his bloodshot eyes.
The supermarket parking lot felt like a warzone. Fluorescent lights stabbed his eyes. People moved with purpose - normal people. Veyth ran into the store, He grabbed three jumbo chip bags. Salt. Fat. Numbness, quickly putting them on the counter, and quickly took out his wallet, they eyes of the cashier felt like they were burning a hole into his face, and so getting out the leftover money from the previous job he accepted and actually got into, he took the money out, giving it to the cashier, buying the bags, and he left, he walked towards his car, feeling like he did something amazing.
"Hey, brother."
Veyth froze. A man blocked his path, fit, bright-eyed, wearing a gym shirt. JASON.
"You alright? You look... strained." Jason's voice was earnest, warm. "Listen, my gym's just across the street. Free trial. I'll train you myself. No judgment. We'll get you feeling stronger, or even back on your feet if somethings happening." He smiled. "I'll even cover the first month."
Pity. The word curdled in Veyth's gut. All this Jason guy sees is garbage. Worthless, broken, walking & breathing garbage right in front of him.
"Feeling stronger?" Veyth's voice cracked. "You think I need your charity? I wrote algorithms that could think circles around your entire bloodline!" Spittle flew. "I was changing the world while you were counting reps!"
Jason held up placating hands. "Whoa, man-"
"DON'T 'MAN' ME!" Veyth shoved him. Jason stumbled but didn't fall. Veyth's own momentum sent him staggering, gasping. Humiliation burned hotter than hunger. "You look at me and see failure! Waste! DISGUSTING-"
Chest pain.
A white-hot spike driving through his ribs. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream.
THUD.
Veyth collapsed. Chips scattered like broken dreams.
Jason's face blurred above him, shouting into a phone:
"-eart attack! Send an ambula-"
Darkness swallowed the words, all he could think was about the pain, and his life, how'd he could have done something, he was useless, but he could have been more, but he shut himself in his room, when he could have gotten back on his feed, he wasted it away, and look now where he is, on the floor, having a heart attack, useless, as he made himself be, he didn't want to be alone, as much as he always was, not how alone he is going to be, he was alone in the darkest nights, but now, he was going to be more alone than ever, he didn't want it all to end, he didn't want to be alone like he always was, but maybe this time, he would be forever... alone.