I’m sorry, what?” I can barely believe my ears as I stare at the woman sitting in front of me.

  Helen sighs, as if destroying what little is left of my life is simply something she’d dearly like to tick off a list. But then, what else should I expect from a woman who met my request for bereavement leave with the question, “Can’t you take it another week?”

  How she ever started working in HR, I have no idea.

  “I said, we regret to inform you that you are fired, Markus.” She says the words with such a lack of emotion that it’s not surprising I need to hear it twice. Then again, she’s not called the “Ice Queen” for nothing. “You are to remove all personal effects from your desk immediately. Jones will walk with you to ensure that everything is cleared correctly.”

  More like to ensure that I don’t decide to do something stupid for revenge like delete or steal employee details, I say bitterly to myself.

  According to them, my conduct over the past three weeks has not been appropriate for my role and is worthy of dismissal. “As a member of human resources, you should be demonstrating the epitome of good conduct,” Helen had said.

  Apparently, being late three times in that time period along with missing two deadlines by a day is sufficient justification for summarily firing me. Never mind the fact that I’d never been late before. Also completely ignoring my past history of religiously meeting every deadline, even when it meant I had to stay until almost midnight on some evenings. Apparently, the fact that my father was dying meant nothing to them. That, and the fact that the deadlines fell on the day of his funeral, which I had officially been given leave for, albeit grudgingly.

  I’m numb as I’m escorted out of my manager’s—former manager’s—office by Jones, the security guard who I’ve nodded to on the way in and out of the office every day for the last five years. My pink slip—not actually pink, but white—is clutched in one hand. I barely notice the looks of my colleagues as I am marched through the familiar corridors.

  Then I’m at my desk, though I don’t really remember getting here. Jones hands me a cardboard box, and I stare at it for a moment unseeingly.

  “You need to put all your stuff in there,” he says gruffly, but not unkindly. I look up and meet his eyes. There’s pity there, and I quickly look away, unable to bear it.

  Reaching out, I take my picture of Lucy from the desk. Recently it’s been turned to the wall, but I haven’t been able to get rid of it completely. Even now I can’t leave it, but I don’t look at it either. Next is the pen my father gave me when I graduated from uni. Then my penholder—nothing special, just something I bought myself when I got irritated with my pens lying all over the place. Item by item, the remnants of my presence in this shared office are removed. And as each object is taken and packed in that small cardboard box, I find the numbness fading and being replaced by anger. How dare they treat me this way? After everything I’ve given up for them? Glancing around the half-walls of the cubicle, I see the three colleagues who share—shared—this office watching me. My team. Or they were an hour ago, anyway. I see the same pity in their eyes that I saw in those of Jones. Pity and judgement. They think I’ve earned this somehow. That I’ve earned being treated like a criminal.

  You’ll be next, I think without saying it, scowling at my cubicle walls instead. Now that my brain is working a little better, I know what’s happening here. At least, I think I do. Outsourcing has been bandied about a good number of times; more recently, it’s been a process of replacing less-key members with AI. Thinking about my recent task list, I can see that it would be ripe to be taken over almost entirely by software.

  I don’t know when it happened. At some point I got shunted out of a more face-to-face role dealing with people and into more administrative tasks. Was it after Lucy left me? Or when my father first got diagnosed with stage four cancer? I don’t know. Either way, I can’t remember the last time I conducted the interview of a candidate or did an actual performance review with an employee. I’ve still been preparing them—finding the data about the employee, writing the job post description and the key requirements. But someone else has actually been doing the meetings. I bet that this dismissal is just so they can buy a much cheaper technological solution.

  Actually, when was the last time I was invited to a meeting with more than just my team? Maybe that should have been a red flag. I shake my head. I’ve been completely off the ball recently, I mourn to myself. But facing the loss of my father brought back all the trauma of losing my mother so many years ago. I just … couldn’t focus on anything. But couldn’t they have given me a break? I’ve given them five years of my life. Five years where I’ve been a model employee. Haven’t I earned three weeks of slight leeway? Especially when I did actually do everything they asked me to.

  Apparently not. But then, if my theory is right, it really wouldn’t have mattered what I did—they would have found fault and a reason to fire me eventually. It looks like replacing Helen as HR director isn’t going to happen now. Perhaps I was a fool to ever believe that it could.

  “Done?” Jones’s question jolts me out of my thoughts. I realize that I am and have just been standing there, staring into space, for who knows how long. “Yes,” I croak through a dry throat. I’m done. Done with this company. Done with this job. As I am escorted out of the office, more eyes follow my walk of shame, I feel the recent events on my shoulders like a mountain of regret. By the time I’m standing on the pavement outside the office, my cardboard box in my hands, a few meaningless words of sympathy from Jones thrown at me like change at a beggar, I wonder something else.

  With everything I’ve lost, what else do I have left?

  Although I uncomfortably dismissed the question when it was first posed by my subconscious outside the office building, it comes back to me later. And then again when I’m halfway through a bottle of whisky. It’s not my habit to drink my troubles away. But this afternoon, after getting home at least three hours before I normally would and with nothing else to do, I realize the emptiness of my life. I couldn’t resist trying to find solace in the bottle. Honestly, though, all I’ve found there has been the same question I asked myself earlier: what do I have left? And its natural brother: what do I have to live for?

  My mother is dead, and my father has now gone to join her. I have no other family I’m on speaking terms with. Especially not after my father’s funeral and the way my aunt behaved at it. I drove my girlfriend away weeks ago with my dedication to the company that has just fired me. I have no friends, my connections with schoolmates disappearing with age and distance, and my busy job didn’t offer me much time to socialize. Apart from with work colleagues, of course, but the thought of trying to continue those relationships after what just happened … ? No. Just … no. And so I drink. At some point I find myself on the edge of my roof, staring down at the street below. Do I dare take another step? End it here and now?

  The playful wind pulls and pushes, as fickle as a woman promising to always be there one moment and then disappearing the next. A gust pushes me back hard enough that my drunken limbs fail to keep me balanced, and I fall flat on my ass, barking a humorless laugh. Is that a message from God? Or the Devil? If either exists, which I doubt. Either way, I find that I cannot summon the courage to step up to the edge again. Unsteadily, I make my way back into my apartment, collapse back into my overstuffed armchair, and raise my bottle to my lips once more. Time passes.

  Drink by drink, I make my way steadily through my alcohol cabinet starting with wine, then moving onto spirits to keep the buzz going and keep the impact of my memories at bay.

  It’s a catch-22. Being drunk adds a layer of fuzziness between me and the memories, covering the glass shards with a soft blanket. But at the same time it stops me being able to think about anything else.

  I wallow in thoughts of the past, of happier times. And of not-so-happy times, which at the very least were better than the present if only because of the people sharing them with me. My mother—dead. My father—dead. My girlfriend—gone. My friends—vanished like the morning dew. For a moment I almost stand outside my own body, looking at this hopeless loser sprawled on the sofa. And then I’m back in my body, alcohol sloshing over my face as I tip it too far backwards. I’m a dead man walking; Hell’s at my door; I’m a shadow of the man I was before. I find the song running through my mind and smile bitterly. If Lucy had still been here, she’d have been ragging me to pull myself together, telling me that losing my job isn’t the end of the world. And it’s not. I know that. In my head. But everything together … It’s too much. I pulled myself together after my mother died. Then again after Lucy left me. Then after my father died. How many times do I have to get up and try again? How many more times do I want to?

  I’m tempted to take myself up to the roof once more, but when I finally push myself to my feet, I’m distracted.

  Something’s happening just next to my overstuffed bookshelf. It takes my sozzled brain a good few seconds to register what I’m looking at. Then, in the very eloquent way all drunks have, I question reality.

  “Whas’a?” Stumbling forwards, I wave my hand vaguely in the air underneath the apparition, then through it.

  “Stop that,” the ghost says, a mite crossly. “This is difficult enough without you interrupting the projection.”

  “Wha? It speaksh?” I murmur, my words slurring together as I stare at the approximately thirty-centimeter-tall pearly-white figure floating a few centimeters off my table.

  It looks like a man, neatly dressed in what I muzzily recognize as a vaguely medieval doublet and hose. A bit like what my male coworkers and I wore at an Elizabethan-inspired Christmas party, though with less-poofy trousers and a more normal-height collar—we’d almost poked our own eyes out with the cardboard points of our costumes.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  As for the face of the ghost, it looks rather like a stereotypical villain with a pointy beard, moustache, and a dark look that grows even darker as I prod it again.

  “Stop that, I said!” the figure barks at me. “Are you … drunk?” it— he—then asks. I shrug languidly.

  “Maaaybe,” I drawl. Looking around, I can’t see the whiskey. If I can question whether I’m drunk or not, I clearly haven’t had enough. “Where’s z’whiksy?”

  “From the looks of it, you’ve had more than enough,” the ghost tells me disapprovingly. “This is the only hope for my legacy?” he mutters under his breath. “Gods help me.” Sighing, he speaks louder. “I don’t have much time. Drunk or not, listen to me now.” I hold up one finger that turns into two as my eyes lose focus.

  “Whiksy firsht,” I tell him as firmly as I can make it. The man sighs again, clear annoyance in the sound.

  “Next to you, on the floor.” I lean over the arm of the chair quickly, almost tipping over it as my center of gravity shifts a bit too far. I see the bottle on the floor and grab it, sloshing its contents as I lean back. Already down by more than half, the liquid doesn’t actually spill out of the bottle despite the abrupt movements.

  I tip it back, almost missing my mouth again. Taking gulps of the liquid, I barely feel the burn, but the alcohol content soon gets to me as the world starts spinning even more. I tip my head back to stare at the ceiling, marveling at the way the cracks are moving round and round and round …

  “Now will you listen?” the apparition asks with frustration in his voice. I wave one hand vaguely in the air, almost hitting myself in the face. “I hope you remember at least some of this when you sober up,” he mutters to himself before once more speaking loudly and clearly.

  “I come with an offer. I need to bestow a powerful inheritance on a successor, and the Oracle has indicated that you are my only option if I do not wish my legacy to be destroyed within the next generation.” He continues speaking, but I have lost the ability to focus, staring at the ceiling vacantly as his voice becomes background sound, the odd word filtering in but not making much sense. It’s almost soothing—too much so for my drunken state to endure, and my eyes slip closed without me even noticing.

  My hands shaking a little, my head and throat still killing me even after the paracetamol I took, I once more smooth out the piece of parchment. I’ve already read it at least three times since finding it, but I read it once more now, still disbelieving it could be real.

  Greetings,

  I will briefly reintroduce myself, as due to your … inebriated state during my visit, and the fact that you seemed to fall asleep halfway through, I doubt you took in much of what I had to say. I must be brief. To send the transportation emblem is effort enough; a message is a further expenditure and is greater the longer the message. It is also an expenditure that I had not anticipated needing after already having paid the cost to project a semblance of myself to explain in person and to answer all the questions of the candidate. Nevertheless, I shall present myself again: I am Lord Nicholas of Azaarde. I offer you a new life and the potential of power and influence beyond what you ever thought you could achieve, beyond what you ever thought possible: the inheritance that I and my family have built over the last few centuries. A powerful Class, Skill set, wealth, and further benefits I will inform you of in person await you. I have no heirs of my own and so I must choose one suitable. I have been informed that you are the only hope of my family’s legacy surviving to the next generation, but you will have to prove yourself worthy of it. I would rather it dies with me than that it is destroyed by a drunkard. I say this so you know I do not make this offer lightly. You have the opportunity now of deciding the rest of your life. You can walk away and forget this ever happened. Imagine it was a dream. Or you can take your destiny in your hands and decide who you will be now and in the future. Should you decide to gamble everything on the chance that you show yourself deserving of what I can bestow on you, hold the transportation emblem accompanying this letter and acknowledge aloud your acceptance. I will warn you: the magic of the emblem will draw you across worlds and universes and there is NO way to return. Any unfinished business will, therefore, remain unfinished. You have twenty-four of your hours to decide; after this, the emblem will return to me, and I will know I must attempt to look elsewhere for a worthy heir. I am aware that it would take an unusual type of person to accept such an uncertain offer of potential power in exchange for everything you currently possess. For the sake of my legacy, I can only hope that you might be such an unusual character and, moreover, that you might overcome the trials ahead and prove yourself more than unusual—that you may prove yourself worthy.

  My sincerest and most cordial sentiments,

  Lord Nicholas Titanbend of Azaarde

  My fingers are numb, my heavily hungover brain still unable to fully understand what I’m looking at here. After waking up and worshipping the porcelain god a few times, I’d found this missive folded below an odd-looking emblem. It’s thick and heavy, about three times the size of a coaster, and has an intricate golden design inlaid in a black background. It’s a coat of arms with three sections: a fox in a side profile; a hammer crossed with a sword; and, filling the lower section, a fine spiderweb.

  The object isn’t anything I’ve seen before and definitely not something I put there. The parchment is odd too, much heavier and thicker than normal paper, the words written in fountain pen or something. What the hell is the letter talking about, anyway? An inheritance? And why are Class and Skills capitalized? I have a feeling he’s not talking about going back to school. But there’s one line my eyes are drawn back to again and again. “You can take your destiny in your hands and decide who you will be now and in the future.” If it’s somehow real …

  Cutting through the depression that I have been mired in for far too long is confusion, incredulity, and one more emotion. Like the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, I feel the faintest glimmering of hope.

  Take my destiny into my own hands … ? It’s a siren call, but my doubting mind quickly pulls me back down to earth. Magic doesn’t exist. Does it? Though there have always been peddlers of miracles, I’ve never truly believed that any of them were genuinely capable. But then, what created that spirit-like apparition last night? I remember it, recall waving my hand around and through it. I recall it speaking to me, and the letter here proves that it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. Unless I’m being set up, of course—technology nowadays is probably able to produce that effect. But who would bother trying to trick a loser like me? I’m already weighing whether stepping off my apartment roof would be the best option. Trying anything on me now would be kicking a man already prone on the ground.

  So, really, what do I have to lose? If it works, great—with magic in the picture, maybe I might even be able to turn my life around for good. And if it doesn’t? If it turns out that this is just one of those reality TV shows where they’re going to leap out from behind the curtain to film my reaction? At least I might be able to offer someone a good laugh. I’m tempted just to accept right away, my hand moving towards the emblem to say the activation phrase and get it over with … but then I hesitate. I’m filthy, covered in alcohol that I sloshed over myself and still in my work clothes from yesterday. Is this really the self I want to take to my new life?

  Do I have time, though? Twenty-four hours, he said … It was dark when the apparition came; I remember that much. And the letter must have come after he appeared because he’s referenced my … drunkenness. I eye the window in my bedroom. The light is already falling—between my tiredness from alcohol and my genuine exhaustion, I’ve slept almost the whole day away. I should have time to have a shower, though.

  My eyes fall on a picture on my night table, the last taken before she was killed. Maybe I even have enough time to pack a few important keepsakes. If I’m leaving this world for good, I don’t want to leave anything behind that I’ll sorely miss.

  Decided, I pull a suitcase from under my bed and start moving around my bedroom and kitchen like a whirlwind.

  Wait. I hesitate, pausing in the middle of the room. Can I even take anything with me? It’s a good point. I rush back to the letter and read it again. There’s no indication either way, but surely I wouldn’t just be teleported in the nude? So, I should at least be able to bring whatever I’m wearing. Surely it’s not too far-fetched to imagine I might also be able to bring anything I’m holding? Though, I should probably be able to lift whatever it is off the ground, just to increase the odds.

  But, again, what do I have to lose? If I don’t pack the things, they’re lost anyway. If I do pack them, I have a chance at taking them with me. Though, I’d better not take too long about it—I don’t want to accidentally miss my window of time.

  It turns out that fitting a life into a few bags is actually pretty difficult. It’s like packing for a holiday in a country I’ve never been to, where I have no idea what awaits me.

  In the end, I’ve filled most of the two bags with half my wardrobe and a few pairs of shoes. I’ve got my Kindle and phone and their chargers, but I’ll probably have to rewire the plugs since I don’t know if my universal adaptor is actually universal. Or trans-universal. I’ve taken a cross-head screwdriver anyway. I’ve got my favorite books alongside my Kindle, so at least I should have something to read even if the plugs don’t work.

  My bathroom still looks a bit like a bomb hit it. When the alcohol turned my stomach earlier, I wasn’t always quick enough to get to the toilet. Or well-coordinated enough. I’ve settled for just grabbing the items on the basin—my toothbrush and shaving kit. I should be able to buy shampoo and that sort of thing later, I guess. Either way, I’m not walking through vomit and broken shower glass to get them.

  Otherwise, I’ve made sure I have my wallet and a few family pictures. I hesitated over including the couple with Lucy I had turned towards the wall after she left, but in the end, I decided to take them. It’s a one-way trip, after all. I even remembered to grab my swimsuit and a pack of condoms, just in case. I pick up a few little nick-nacks that I figure might not be in Nicholas’s world and with that, I’m ready. About to grab the emblem, I pause, a final thought occurring.

  Nipping into the kitchen, I wrinkle my nose at the smell and carefully avoid the puddle of broken glass and alcohol lying on the floor to access my pots. Maybe it seems a bit weird, but it took me years to find a wok that cooked food to my satisfaction; I’m not going to leave it behind now.

  After finding a spot in my bag to stuff the wok into, I finally grab the round disk of the emblem, hoping that it won’t suddenly disappear out of my fingers, a minute too late to accept the offer. It’s heavy in my hands, both with its physical weight and the weight of this decision. I hesitate, even though it feels like precious seconds are trickling out of my fingers. Do I really want to do this? Go into something completely unknown? Even assuming that the presence of “magic”—or technology sufficiently advanced to be called such—is real and I’m about to be teleported somewhere else, there’s still a lot that could go wrong. What if this is actually some sort of scam for human traffickers or something? What if by “accepting the offer,” I end up becoming some sort of alien slave? I have no guarantee that this Nicholas guy is telling the truth about his motivations. And is my life really that bad? Maybe this dark emptiness won’t always be all I have to look forward to; maybe one day I could pull myself up, maybe make something big of myself …

  I bite my lip and then my grip tightens on the emblem. No, I’ve made my decision. Here’s my big chance to make something of myself, to turn my desire to end my life into a desire to transform it. If I don’t at least try this, I might as well just throw myself out of my window and hope I don’t hurt anyone by landing on them. This is my decision, for better or for worse. “Hold the transportation emblem accompanying this letter and acknowledge aloud your acceptance,” said the letter. I’m about to do so when it occurs to me again that I might be better off lifting my suitcases off the ground rather than just holding their handles. It takes a bit of juggling to succeed in holding both suitcases as well as the emblem; the effort it takes to lift what has to be forty-plus kilos reminds me that, as well as everything else, I’ve been neglecting the gym. Still, I succeed eventually and even as my fingers strain and my face reddens from the effort, I gasp out the activation phrase.

  “I accept.”