London, 2025. Rain again. Of course.
David Solomon pressed his ID card against the office scanner, waited for the sluggish beep, and stepped inside. The building smelled of coffee, printer ink, and collective despair. A perfect habitat for a minimum-wage corporate organism.
He dropped into his cubicle, eyes already tired. The fluorescent lights hummed above him like a swarm of judgmental bees.
Another day, another spreadsheet.
He had learned long ago that surviving adulthood wasn't about chasing dreams. It was about not letting bills kill you before your heart did.
The day crawled. Deadlines, emails, the usual dance of pretending to care. By 10 p.m., the only souls left were David, the cleaning crew, and the faint echo of the rain tapping against the windows.
When he finally stepped out, the city looked half-asleep—orange streetlights reflecting off puddles like molten coins.
Then he heard it. A shout. A struggle.
Across the street, two men cornered a woman near an alley. One yanked at her purse. She screamed.
David froze. He wasn't stupid. He'd read the news. People who "did the right thing" usually ended up hospitalized or worse.
Call the police. Don't be a hero.
But the woman's eyes met his—pure panic, pleading.
Something inside him stirred. A memory? A feeling? He raised a hand without thinking.
The world pulsed green.
A faint ring of light flickered from his palm, humming like static. The mugger's knife clattered to the ground, his arm locked mid-motion as if bound by invisible ropes. Both men stumbled backward, shouting in confusion.
David blinked. The glow vanished. The woman ran.
He stood there, rain soaking his hair, staring at his hand.
"That… didn't happen."
He laughed once, shaky. "Maybe I finally snapped."
But the warmth in his chest—the subtle hum beneath his ribs—said otherwise.
That night, as he lay awake in his cheap apartment, he whispered to the ceiling:
"You must be wondering how a broke office guy like me ended up with magic." "Yeah. Me too."
And that was the night I began to remember who I used to be.