Chapter 0 (prologue): A job

The forger made two perfect swords

One that cuts everything

One that cuts nothing

“Man, I should really get a new job…”

Srishta Saange walked down the street coming home from his job.

“I really thought I would do something better with my talents than this… At least it pays well.”

While walking down the street he looked around him, at all the pieces of technology made, designed and invented by the ones before him. Looking around he felt a big pit in his stomach growing.

“Since my younger days, they told me I could do something with my talent. Be creative, invent new things and help people. Instead of that I make the very things ending others lives… this isn’t a life worth living really…”

He thought about his plans as he does every time he walks back home from work. It was all laid out perfectly on his desk table on a singular regular piece of paper. What rope to use, what pills to take to make it least painful possible, what time of day to do it to disturb his neighbors the least etc. It has been lying down there for weeks, maybe even months since the first time he wrote it. Srishta knows exactly what is written on that piece of paper with minute detail, even if he hasn’t looked at it anymore since he wrote it. The idea to just let it all go and move on from this waste of a life was a bliss for him.

“Everyone else thinks I’m living the life, the money, the status. I do not know how we as people wanted to create weapons and I know even less why we respect people like me doing so.”

While walking he passed the workers that waved at him in the beginning to catch his attention but they know he lives around the block by now and also know that he’s not interested. He walked throughout the streets with a look of a dying man. A man with no hope in the future, with only sadness in his eyes. His phone started ringing.

“Son, I told you to call me more often! Why have you not called me last week?”

His mother was very pleased with him as a son, except for the fact that he didn’t communicate very well.

“I was in general just quite busy… Since the promotion and all of that. My workload has increased quite a lot.”

His voice sounded stale, as if the words coming out of his own mouth repulsed him. His mother on the other hand was more than pleased. Her son, already a manager at a massive weapons manufacturing company and only at 25!

“Yes yes, but you must have gotten a nice pay increase haven’t you? Why don’t you rent yourself a better apartment with that new money or maybe even start thinking about buying a house? It’d feel quite empty though, have you finally started thinking about the proposals we have sent you? Me and your dad have been quite worried, you have a good position and you’re the right age for that now.”

He didn’t know how to tell his mother that he was completely unattracted on every level by the proposals that he had been given.

“What do you even mean with ‘proposals’ it is just woman you know around my age that you think I should start talking with, you’re making it sound so official as if they are already ready to be married off to me”

This conversation was taking way too long for his liking at this point, he was ready to hang up at any moment. While thinking about hanging up on his mother, his memories of his mother rushed back to him. She was always a massive supporter of his and his passion for creation. She didn’t understand any of it, but she was always there for him.

“No, that’s not how me and your father mean it but still… Think about it, let me know if you fancy any of those girls”

He continued his route home, remembering why he picked up this place as a place to live. This place still felt real compared to his job with a lot of fake laughs and fake smiles. The people here were maybe bottom of the barrel to the rest of society, but to him it was a daily wake-up call that the real world is not just made up of rich people getting richer by making weapons.

“Either way mom, I’m almost home now. I was heading from work. I had quite a tiring day, I’ll probably order something and immediately head to bed”

He knew what his mother was gonna say before she even said it. He knew it word by word he was waiting for it to happen and she indeed said the exact words that he was expecting.

“You know if you had a girl living at home with you, you wouldn’t have to order something and there might be a bath waiting for you”

That was his cue to officially leave the conversation.

“Thank you mom, but it isn’t the middle ages anymore”

He finally hung up on his mom, while getting inside his building and getting on the stairs. There was nothing on the walls to make people believe that the walls weren’t made out of concrete. It was plain gray bricks, Srishta liked that quite a lot. He enjoyed walking up the stairs of his building. You had all the noise from the outside while he was walking home but once he got into the stairs it was as if those noises never existed. It was relaxing to know that his sound safe space still existed once going home. Once he got at the door of his room and went in, he got reminded that noise still exists. You could hear the outside from his room through his thin windows.

He went inside of his home, a simple 91 m² apartment. Quite big for a man living alone in his twenties as his mom would say. It did feel lonely, but it had everything he needed. He had his office room he hasn’t entered since writing that special singular piece of paper. His lounge room with his sofa and carpet and his kitchen. He had the bare minimum of furniture, he didn’t even want furniture but his parents (mostly his mother) forced him to have some kind of interior design. He took off his suit and put his suitcase on his bed to be ready for tomorrow, he was in underwear now walking around his apartment almost looking clueless. He honestly didn’t know what to do with his time, so he took some leftovers he had made, heated it up and started eating it while being on his computer. He had 2 separate computers, one in his office room and one in his lounge room. He started watching his favorite shows, scrolling through the internet and in general trying to distract himself from the indirect horrors he had caused today. He finally went to bed, at the exact same hour as every other day.

His evening routine was always the same, brush his teeth, clean his face, prepare the clothing he had to put on tomorrow and that was that. Srishta got into bed and he started sleeping except he didn’t. He forgot to put on something to listen to before going to bed or his mind started racing. He put something on and he slowly but surely started dozing off until he fell asleep.

“Hey!”

The room Srishta was in was empty, his apartment was empty too. There was nobody.

“Hey!!”

Even in his bad neighborhood around this time of night there wasn’t any sound. Every type of worker is asleep at this time of night, even the shadiest ones.

“Hey!!!”

It is as if the whole city slept, there was no animal awake, none from any branch of taxonomy.

“We need you.”

Srishta suddenly woke up as if a giant sledgehammer woke him up. He stood up from his bed and started looking around his room, as if he was searching for somebody.

“Where are you!?”

He screamed, not knowing what emotion to feel. Panic because he didn’t know what was happening, anxiety because somebody needed him, anger because somebody woke him up?

“I’ll wait for you here.”

He heard it a last time clearly throughout his whole apartment, it wasn’t a dream. Somebody told him something. He looked around frantically trying to locate the place of the angelic voice he heard. While searching frantically throughout his whole apartment for a place to locate those sounds he heard he suddenly remembered a face. The round face of a woman with beautiful brown skin and thin lips. He didn’t want to forget her so he frantically searched for a piece of paper. He immediately thought about the special piece of paper he kept in his office space. He ran there and started scribbling a face and what he heard on the back of that piece of paper. He started tearing up, even if he didn’t understand why.

“I won’t forget”

He frantically drew the face and over time while drawing he calmed down. It is as if all the energy suddenly got sucked out of him, he was exhausted on every aspect of being.

He went back to bed, tucked himself in and slept another night.