The warehouse smelled like dust and diesel fumes.
Makun clocked in at 8:47, nearly an hour and a half late. The supervisor, Marcus, was waiting by the time clock. Arms crossed. Face twisted into something between annoyance and satisfaction.
"Late again."
"Traffic." Makun didn't stop walking. He headed for his station, grabbing his work gloves from the hook.
"Traffic." Marcus followed him, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Always traffic. Or your alarm didn't go off. Or the bus broke down. You got an excuse for everything, don't you?"
Makun bit down on the response trying to climb out of his throat. He pulled on the gloves, flexed his fingers. "I'm here now."
"Yeah, you are. For now." Marcus leaned against a support beam, watching him like a hawk circling prey. "But we're gonna have a talk at the end of your shift. About reliability."
Makun said nothing. He turned toward the stack of crates that needed sorting, scanning the labels, checking inventory numbers against the manifest on his tablet.
Marcus walked away, muttering something under his breath that Makun pretended not to hear.
The morning crawled by.
Makun moved crates, scanned barcodes, restocked shelves. Repetitive work that numbed the brain but kept the body busy. He preferred it that way. Less time to think. Less time for the nightmare to creep back into his thoughts.
But the universe had other plans.
11:23 AM.
He was moving a pallet of electronics, expensive stuff, when the forklift started making a grinding noise. Not normal. He eased off the accelerator, but the sound got worse. Metal on metal, screeching, wrong.
He pulled the brake.
The forklift lurched.
The pallet tipped.
Boxes slid.
CRASH!
Four boxes hit the concrete floor. Hard. The sound echoed through the warehouse like a gunshot. Heads turned. Work stopped.
Makun stared at the wreckage. Shattered plastic casings. Exposed circuit boards. Screens cracked into spiderwebs.
"What the hell did you do?!"
Marcus was already sprinting over, face red, veins bulging in his neck.
"The forklift..." Makun started.
"The forklift was fine yesterday! You broke it!"
"I didn't..."
"You break everything!" Marcus jabbed a finger at the ruined boxes. "You know how much those cost? Those are high end tablets! Twelve hundred each!"
Makun climbed off the forklift, inspected the pallet. The straps were loose. Someone hadn't secured them properly before he picked them up.
"The straps were already loose," Makun said, keeping his voice level. "Whoever loaded this..."
"Don't blame someone else for your screw up!"
"I'm not. Look." Makun pointed at the frayed edges of the straps, the way they'd been tied wrong. "This wasn't secured right. That's not on me."
Marcus didn't even look. "Everything's always someone else's fault with you, isn't it?"
Other workers were gathering now, forming a loose circle. Watching. Waiting.
Makun felt his jaw tighten. "I'm telling you what happened."
"And I'm telling you you're done." Marcus pulled out his phone, started taking pictures of the broken tablets. "That's four grand in damaged goods. Coming out of your paycheck."
"What?" Makun's voice went flat. "That's illegal."
"Sue me." Marcus snapped another photo. "Or just accept that you're a walking disaster and get out of my warehouse."
Something snapped.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a quiet break, like a thread pulled too tight finally giving way.
"I didn't break your forklift," Makun said slowly. "I didn't load that pallet wrong. And you're not taking money out of my pay for something I didn't do."
Marcus stepped closer, crowding into Makun's space. "You threatening me?"
"I'm telling you how it is."
"Here's how it is." Marcus's voice dropped, cold and deliberate. "You're fired. Effective immediately. Don't bother cleaning out your locker. Security will escort you out."
The words hung in the air for a moment.
Makun stared at him. At the smug satisfaction on Marcus's face. At the other workers looking anywhere but at him.
He could fight this. He could argue. He could demand to speak to someone higher up.
But what was the point?
Equipment broke around him. Accidents followed him. Every job ended the same way.
"Fine." Makun pulled off his gloves, dropped them on the forklift seat. "I'm gone."
He walked toward the exit. Didn't look back. Didn't give Marcus the satisfaction.
Security met him at the door. A guy named Jerome who'd always been decent, at least. He didn't say anything, just walked Makun to the gate and buzzed him out.
The gate clanged shut behind him.
Makun stood on the sidewalk, staring at nothing.
No job.
Forty eight hours to come up with three months of rent.
No savings.
No backup plan.
The sky opened up.
Rain.
Of course it was raining.
Cold, heavy drops that soaked through his shirt in seconds. He didn't run. Didn't look for shelter. Just started walking.
The city blurred around him. Cars splashing through puddles. People huddled under awnings and umbrellas. The world moving on like nothing had happened.
He walked for twenty minutes before he realized where he was going.
The overlook.
A small park on the edge of the lower city, where the ground dropped away into a concrete ravine. Train tracks ran through the bottom, rusted and unused. The city sprawled beyond it, buildings stacked on buildings, lights starting to flicker on as the afternoon bled into evening.
Makun stopped at the railing, gripped the wet metal, let the rain hammer against his back.
His mind cataloged everything.
Abandoned at birth. No name, no family, no history. Just a label slapped on him by whatever nurse had processed him at the hospital.
Foster care. Seven different homes before he aged out at eighteen. None of them wanted him. None of them kept him. Something about him made people uncomfortable. He'd heard it whispered enough times. "There's just something off about that boy."
Jobs. Too many to count. Dishwasher, stock clerk, delivery driver, security guard, warehouse worker. Every single one ending the same way. Fired, laid off, let go. Always his fault. Always the problem.
Relationships. A few friends who drifted away. A couple of girlfriends who couldn't handle the constant chaos that followed him. The last one, Amara, had said it plainly: "It's like you're cursed, Makun. I can't do this anymore."
He'd laughed it off at the time.
Cursed.
What a ridiculous idea.
But standing here in the rain, staring at the gray city sprawled out like a corpse, he couldn't shake the thought.
What if she was right?
What if something really was wrong? Not just bad luck. Not just coincidence. Something else. Something he couldn't see but could feel, like pressure behind his eyes, like chains around his chest.
The nightmare flashed through his mind. The chains. The glass tube. The shapes feeding on him.
What if it's real?
The thought sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the rain.
"No." He said it out loud, shaking his head. "That's insane."
But the thought wouldn't leave.
He stood there until the rain eased into a drizzle, until his clothes were plastered to his skin and his fingers were numb on the railing.
Then he turned and walked home.
The apartment looked even worse when he was soaking wet.
He stripped off his shirt, wrung it out over the sink, draped it over a chair. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, checked the screen.
Three missed calls from an unknown number.
Probably debt collectors. They'd been circling for months.
He ignored them.
The eviction notice sat on the small table by the window, exactly where he'd left it.
Forty eight hours.
No job. No money. No options.
He sank into the chair, stared at the notice, felt the weight of it pressing down on him like the glass tube from his nightmare.
For the first time in a long time, Makun didn't know what to do.
He grabbed his phone, unlocked it, stared at the blank search bar.
His fingers hovered over the screen.
Then, almost without thinking, he typed.
Why is everything going wrong in my life
He hit search.