Chapter 8: The Cost of Emptiness

Adrián Castell’s inbox pulsed with a new notification just as the system clock hit 6:26 p.m.

He had been buried in his glass-walled office on the twenty-third floor for hours. He hadn’t spoken to a soul all day. The overhead lights were off; the only light came from the dull glow of his monitor and the weak flicker of a desk lamp on the verge of burning out.

Before him lay a battlefield: open folders, financial reports, and graphs plunging like blades—simulations predicting, with surgical coldness, the slow death of his most ambitious project.

His fingers, numb from cold and tension, barely gripped the pencil he’d been using to scribble notes. His light blue shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, his elbows worn from the strain. His suit jacket hung over the back of a chair—a chair that no longer felt like it belonged to him.

Slowly, as if the movement itself were a burden, Adrián pressed his palms to his temples. It wasn't a standard headache. It wa