Elara’s POV
The alarm shrieked at six in the morning.
I slapped it silent and lay there, staring at the water-stained ceiling. The cracks in the plaster branched out like veins across a dying leaf. My body felt hollowed out. I’d barely slept. Every ti I’d closed my eyes, I saw Mia’s face, the mory of her taking my money, and her sudden disappearance into the night.
Forty-three gold. Every coin I had in the world, riding in the pocket of a girl with a one-way ticket.
I dragged myself upright. The floorboards groaned under my bare feet. Cold seeped through the thin soles of my stockings as I dressed in the gray half-light, pulling on the sa wrinkled blouse from yesterday. The mirror above the washbasin showed bruised shadows under my eyes. I looked away.
No ti for that.
I locked the apartnt door behind and descended three flights of narrow stairs. The hallway slled like mildew and boiled cabbage. Soone’s baby was crying behind a thin wall. The sound followed out into the street like a ghost.
I made it to the shop exactly two minutes early, at 7:58. Gary was already at the front counter, his bald head shining under the overhead enchantnt lamps. His face was the color of raw at—permanently flushed, permanently angry.
"You." He jabbed a thick finger at . "Mia called in. Family ergency. She’s out for a few days."
My stomach tightened. "How many days?"
"However many it takes. Not my problem." He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. "You’re covering register two and three today."
"Both registers? That’s—"
"Did I stutter?"
I pressed my lips together. "Will there be overti compensation for covering two stations?"
Gary laughed. It was a short, ugly bark. "Overti? You want overti?" He leaned forward, planting both aty palms on the counter. "Let remind you of sothing, Sarah. You still owe three hundred gold for that little incident where you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself. That’s coming straight out of your wages. You should be thanking for letting you keep this job at all."
The incident. A custor had knocked a display of enchanted goods off the shelf. I had been standing a short distance away. Gary had blad anyway. Docked the full replacent cost from my pay without blinking.
I swallowed. "I understand."
"Register two. Now. Move."
I moved.
The next two days blurred together in a haze of broken checkout crystals and endless lines of impatient custors. The register malfunctioned constantly—the scanning crystal was cracked down the middle, and many items required a manual override. My fingers ached from tapping the rune pad. My back scread from standing for hours without a break.
Mia didn’t co in. Not the next day. Not the day after.
By Friday afternoon, I had tried reaching her through the communication stone for the tenth ti this week. Each attempt t the sa result: silence, then the cheerful chi of her recorded ssage.
"Hey! It’s Mia! Leave sothing fun and I’ll get back to you!"
Fun. Right.
I pressed the stone to my forehead and closed my eyes. Then I spoke. Slowly. Carefully. Like soone defusing a trap.
"Mia. It’s again. I need to hear from you. The rent—I need that money. Please. Please just let know you’re okay."
Silence.
I ended the connection and stared at the stone in my palm. It sat there, warm and useless.
When I finally left the shop at six o’clock that evening, the sun was already sinking behind the rooftops. Orange light spilled across the cobblestones like sothing bleeding out. I walked ho with lead in my legs and dread coiling tighter with every step.
I slled it before I saw it.
The stairwell reeked of cheap pipe tobacco and sothing sour—old cooking oil, maybe, or unwashed fabric. I climbed to the third floor and stopped dead.
A bright pink notice was tacked to my door.
I didn’t need to read it. I already knew. But I peeled it off anyway, my fingers numb, and held it up to the flickering hallway lantern.
NOTICE OF EVICTION. Tenant is hereby required to remit the full outstanding balance of 450.00 gold for the month of October no later than Sunday, October 27th. Failure to comply will result in imdiate removal of tenant and belongings.
I read it twice. Then a third ti, as though the numbers might rearrange themselves into sothing survivable.
Inside, I sat on the edge of my mattress and activated the banking token. The crystal display glowed pale blue in the dark apartnt.
Balance: 47 gold, 33 copper.
I stared at it until the display dimd itself to sleep.
---
Saturday morning. I stood in front of Gary’s office door and knocked. My palms were damp. My pride was already on the floor. I just needed the rest of to follow.
"What?" he barked from inside.
I pushed the door open. He was hunched over a ledger, a half-eaten pastry shedding crumbs across the pages. He didn’t look up.
"Gary, I—I need to ask you sothing."
"Make it quick, Sarah."
Sarah. He’d been calling the wrong na since the day I started. I’d corrected him twice. Then I stopped bothering.
"I need an advance on my wages. Just two or three hundred gold. I’ll work it off. Double shifts, weekends—whatever you need."
He finally looked up. His small eyes traveled over my face with the detached curiosity of soone examining an insect.
"An advance."
"Yes. Please. I’m about to lose my apartnt. I just need—"
"Guild policy." He bit into the pastry. Chewed. Swallowed. "No advances. No exceptions."
"Gary, I’m begging you. I have nowhere—"
"Not my problem." He turned back to the ledger. "Close the door on your way out, Sarah."
I stood there for three more heartbeats. He didn’t look up again. I closed the door.
---
Sunday night.
The knock ca later that evening. I knew who it was before I opened it.
Mr. Petersen filled my doorfra like a toad squatting on a rock. Short. Thick. Greasy hair combed over a spotted scalp. The sll hit first—stale tobacco layered over cheap cologne, the kind that burned the inside of your nose. His small wet eyes swept past into the apartnt.
"Evening, sweetheart."
"Mr. Petersen, I know why you’re here, and I just need a little more ti—"
"Ti’s up." He held up a pudgy hand. His fingernails were yellow. "I gave you the notice. Very clear. Very fair."
"Please. I have most of it. I just need a few more days to—"
"You have most of it?" He cocked his head, a thin smile spreading across his face. "How much is most?"
I couldn’t say forty-seven gold and thirty-three copper out loud. The number was too humiliating. Too final.
"I can get the rest by—"
"Sweetheart." He said it the way soone talks to a slow child. "I’ve heard this song before. Every tenant who falls behind sings the sa tune. ’Just a few more days.’ ’Just a little more ti.’ And then it’s another month, and another, and suddenly I’m running a charity."
"I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for—"
"What you’re asking for is irrelevant, dear." His smile didn’t waver. "You have until noon tomorrow. Pack your things and be out. If you’re still here when I co back with the city guard, it won’t be a conversation. It’ll be a removal."
He gave my apartnt one more lingering look—the bare walls, the single lantern, the mattress on the floor—and sothing flickered across his face. Not pity. Satisfaction.
"Noon," he repeated. Then he turned and waddled back down the hallway, trailing tobacco smoke behind him like a foul ghost.
I closed the door. Locked it. Pressed my back against it and slid to the floor.
Mia was gone. The money was gone. Forty-three gold, vanished into the night along with a promise.
I didn’t cry. I was past crying. The tears had been wrung out of days ago, squeezed dry by the chanical cruelty of registers and ledgers and pink eviction notices. What replaced them was sothing heavier. Sothing flat and gray and suffocating, like a stone slab laid over my chest.
I crawled to the mattress and collapsed face-down. The pillow slled like dust and old fabric softener. I pressed my face into it and tried to breathe.
My hand slid across the rough cotton, brushing against sothing sharp. A small white card was peeking out from under the pillow. I pulled it out and held it up to the faint moonlight leaking through the window.
Crisp, expensive stock. Black ink in clean, angular script.
Zane Thorne. Talent Acquisition.
User Comments
0 comments from readers