The feeling of power was a warm, pleasant hum under Aiden's skin.
For the first time in what felt like forever, he wasn't living on the edge of a cliff.
His energy bar was sitting at a comfortable 85%.
The new charisma skill was absurdly effective.
Work was easier. People listened. Chloe the office shark now looked at him with a confusing mix of hunger and fear.
It was nice.
He was in control.
"See, my vessel?" Liora purred in his head, her voice smug. "I told you this would be fun. You're a natural predator. All that quiet on the outside, and a wolf on the inside."
"I'm not a wolf," Aiden thought back, his tone dry. "I'm an office assistant with a parasitic life coach."
A delicate, echoing giggle was her only reply.
He was organizing his desk, enjoying the clean lines and the quiet hum of his computer, when he heard the front door open.
That was unusual.
The sound was heavy, decisive.
It wasn't Elena's soft, almost apologetic entrance.
Aiden felt a familiar cold dread snake its way up his spine.
He walked out of his small home office to see his father, Leonard Vale, standing in the foyer.
Mr. Vale was not a man; he was a statue carved from disappointment.
He was dressed in a perfectly tailored grey suit that probably cost more than Aiden's rent for a year. Not a single hair was out of place. His sharp, steel-colored eyes scanned the pristine entrance hall and found it lacking.
"Aiden," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the silence like a razor. It was a statement, not a greeting.
"Father," Aiden replied, his voice automatically flattening into a neutral monotone. "You're home."
"For the evening," Leonard corrected, placing his briefcase down with a soft, final click. "We'll be having dinner together. As a family."
The word 'family' sounded alien coming from his lips. It sounded like a corporate merger.
Elena appeared at the top of the stairs, her hand immediately going to the necklace at her throat. She looked like a startled deer.
"Leonard," she said, her voice a little breathless. "I didn't know you were coming home tonight."
"My schedule is my own," he stated, not looking at her. He was already walking toward the dining room. "Dinner will be at seven. Punctually."
The warm hum of power Aiden had been enjoying all day vanished.
It was replaced by the icy quiet of a tomb.
"Ooh, this one is cold," Liora whispered, a note of morbid curiosity in her voice. "There's no energy coming from him at all. He's like a black hole in a business suit."
Dinner was as pleasant as a tax audit.
The silence was thick and suffocating, broken only by the sharp clink of silverware on porcelain.
Elena had cooked. She always did when he was home, a hopeful gesture that was always ignored.
She sat perfectly straight, pushing a piece of chicken around her plate, her eyes downcast.
Aiden ate methodically, his focus entirely on his plate. Don't look up. Don't engage. Be furniture.
Leonard, of course, broke the silence first.
"Your latest performance review was adequate, Aiden," he began, dabbing his lips with a napkin. "Adequate is another word for replaceable."
Aiden didn't respond. He just chewed.
"Affection has no place in progress, Aiden. Focus on what matters," Leonard continued, his voice a low, clinical drone. "Your mother understood that. She was a brilliant woman. Ambitious. Driven. She didn't have time for… weakness."
The mention of his mother was a punch to the gut.
Aiden's jaw tightened. He could feel Elena flinch beside him.
He hated when his father did this. He would bring her up not with fondness, but as a standard. A benchmark of perfection that Aiden could never hope to reach.
"Don't talk about her," Aiden said, his voice dangerously quiet.
Leonard's eyes narrowed slightly. "I will speak of my late wife however I see fit."
He then turned his cold gaze to Elena.
"And you," he said, his tone dripping with dismissal. "How is your little… shop? Still selling overpriced fabrics to bored housewives?"
Elena's face crumbled.
It was a quiet, devastating collapse. Her shoulders slumped. The light in her gentle blue eyes just… went out.
She didn't say a word. She just stared at her plate, her whole body trembling slightly.
Aiden saw it. He saw the pain. The humiliation.
And a hot, white-hot rage surged through him. A rage on her behalf. A rage for the memory of his mother being used as a weapon.
It was an intense, overwhelming wave of pure emotion.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
It wasn't the gentle chime of a quest.
It was a violent, angry vibration that felt like an electric shock.
In his mind's eye, a notification window slammed into view, glowing a furious, blood-red.
[EMOTIONAL TRAUMA DETECTED!]
Aiden's breath hitched.
[-100 AP]
He felt a sudden, sharp pain in his chest, as if a needle had been driven straight into his heart.
[-100 AP]
The warmth drained from his body, replaced by an arctic cold.
[-100 AP]
His vision swam. The dining room lights blurred into painful starbursts.
[WARNING: CRITICAL ENERGY LEVELS REACHED!]
He looked at his phone under the table.
The bar had plummeted. It was no longer a healthy green. It was a screaming, critical red.
Energy: 12%
"Aiden?" Elena's voice was a whisper, filled with concern. She had seen his face go pale. "Are you alright?"
"What is this?" Liora shrieked in his head. Her voice was thin, panicked. "What's happening? It hurts! My vessel, it hurts!"
Aiden stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor.
Both Leonard and Elena stared at him.
"I'm not feeling well," he managed to say, his voice strained.
He turned and walked out of the room on unsteady legs, the ghost of his father's cold voice following him.
"Weakness," Leonard muttered, already dismissing him.
Aiden stumbled into his room and collapsed onto his bed, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He stared at the number on his phone.
12%.
The timer was back. 1 hour, 45 minutes.
He wasn't just being threatened by cardiac collapse anymore.
He had just discovered a new, terrifying rule to this game.
Heartbreak was a killer.
And his father had just dealt him a mortal wound.