Chapter 2 Choice With Despair

The office worker stood up and began to walk to the branch head's office with his supervisor. For the past year, the office worker has given his trust to his supervisor as he would always be willing to answer his questions and was forgiving for the small mistakes he would make from time to time.

Over time the office worker felt he was close with his supervisor and felt that they would build a long-lasting bond of trust through future projects. But this was now in contention, as the office worker knew that his instincts were usually right whenever he got that chill down his spine.

In the past he would obtain bursts of excitement or energy from this chill, but this time was not one of those times.

This chill was similar to the numerous times he witnessed his past and current mentors conversing with the supervisor after a round of quizzing with him. He knew that he had made many mistakes and thought in his paranoia that his coworkers were reporting his failures to upper management, but he had believed in his delusion that his coworkers were not speaking ill of him.

He assumed that they were just reporting his progress in a professional manner with no bias as they were the skilled professionals in this office.

He was wrong.

Sitting in the chair across from his branch head, he feared that today would be the last day of his career at this office but hoped that it wasn't true. Yet again he was wrong. Unfortunately, he was given a choice between two options that both had him losing his job in the end.

After 17 years of study, self-reflection, trial-n-error, hardship, sleepless nights, and stress he had finally obtained the job he wanted. It had everything he needed. A good pay, insurance, and not to mention the fantastical task of repairing ships of such a variety of sizes and purposes.

But this came to an end on that day. That day was November 4th, 2022, at 9:38 AM.

As the office worker signed his name for resignation rather than termination, which would forever ban him from ever obtaining a similar job, he chose the less damning of the two choices. The reason for his removal from his position was a list of what he knew were nitpicked reasons that were believed to be sufficient proof of his incompetence and lack of ability.

As he was listening to the reasons, he realized that they were all from his past and current mentors' complaints. But he also noticed that there was no mention of his upward progress after these incidents, so as the reasons continued to pile on each other, an emotion began to stir in the office worker.

The reasons all differed from each other and were still only small hiccups that were later prevented from occurring in the future as he knew that he was making improvements. Yet his mentors never reported his improvement but rather only emphasized his past mistakes.

But this did not matter to the branch head as he had already made his decision. The office worker noticed that the branch head looked at the office worker with tired eyes that looked as if he just wanted to get this done quickly and move on. The situation was already generating an awkward atmosphere and was getting only more awkward as time passed.

The supervisor was looking at the office worker with a sorry expression believing that there was nothing he could do and felt that while his decision to remove the office worker from his position was the right one, it was a difficult one.

At that moment the office worker understood that both the branch head and supervisor had given up on him. They gave up on the potential they once saw in him only a year and a half prior, during his time as an intern under them.

The office worker also understood that there was nothing he could do and politely complied under an expression of false calm. He did his best to hide the disappointment and anger, but these emotions were not directed at his colleagues.

These emotions were directed at himself as he had sworn to himself to help others and wanted to help carry the responsibility that burdened his coworkers.

In the end, he failed, and he was deemed a failure by upper management. As he began preparing his luggage to leave the office, he called a short meeting with his coworkers to say goodbye.

Around a table were his older coworkers that he looked up to and also saw some of the coworkers of similar age to him. He felt especially connected with one coworker that he knew for many years as they went to the same school and college.

But when he saw his current mentor, his mind came to an understanding. While he respected her for her skills, he could no longer feel respect for her as a person. The smiling look of glee on her face caused him to no longer feel any emotion towards her.

Over 70% of the reasons for why he was being removed from his job was from his mentor. A gut churning emotion of conflict began to fester in his mind as he said his goodbyes to her with a fake smile to hide the inappropriate facial expression trying to surface.

This conflict in his mind was only compounded by the absence of his past mentor who stepped out to do other work and seemed to purposely miss the chance to say what was likely the last conversation he would have with his past mentee.

As he continued his goodbyes, he shook the hands of his coworkers of similar age, he was emotionally struck again as he felt no reassurance from their grips. They were loose and their eyes were uncaring of his situation.

In this moment, the office worker felt the emotions almost fester out onto his outward facade as he felt betrayed.

After many years, he thought there was a friendship between himself and his longtime colleague, but this was just an illusion as his colleague did not reciprocate the friendship he gave.

He continued his goodbyes and was able to feel a slight amount of ease from his other older coworkers whose handshakes were not only firm but warm as their smiles also helped to stem the festering in the office worker's mind.

After all was said and done, he left the office with his large suitcase in hand.

As the office worker began his trip home, he drove his car down the highway as quickly as he could. He wanted the sweet relief of resting in his bed and the silence of his home to be able to think clearly but realized that he should at least inform his family of the situation.

So, as he began fiddling with his smartphone with one hand while keeping his eyes on the road, he attempted to call his dad as he felt he could talk to him about his situation. His father would hear him out since his father was so accepting of his hobbies and passions from when he was a child and they both loved to talk about a variety of topics.

He felt that if they talked a bit then there could be some relief in his heart and a cure for the festering in his mind.

But suddenly a loud crunch was heard, his attention then turned to his left and saw that an enormous figure of what looked like the front of a truck was rushing towards the side of his car. He could not turn the car away fast enough as he only had one hand on the wheel and the resistance of the wheel was too much for just one hand.

With his ability to think decreased from splitting his attention between the road and his smartphone, it was impossible to produce any action to save himself. His mind raced for a solution, but this didn't matter in the next few moments.

The next scene he saw was a red and brownish puddle in front of him and a cold sensation in his lower body. He attempted to move his legs but there was no response.

He suddenly realized that not only could he not move his legs, but that he was pinned into the seat of his car as the car's frame had deform so much that he could see his legs were crushed from the knee down.

His realization was further worsened by the noticeable smell of gasoline mixing with his blood and other unidentified fluids and solids. It filled his nose and out of nowhere he began to retch. The gory sight of his crushed leg and flowing blood made him queasy, but as he was emptying the contents of his stomach a bang deafened him and a momentary burning sensation overcame him.

Then, all he could see was black.

On November 4th, 2022, at 12:32PM the car of previously known Ship Engineer Azi Montagne was caught in an accident with a cargo truck containing liquid and solid fuels required of the ships he previously worked to repair.

The very lifeblood of the ships that this young man worked to repair had covered him and took his life as both the solid and liquid fuel was ignited by a spark.

The news would report that there was no body to recover as it was concluded that the explosion had vaporized all traces of him.

While the complete disappearance of a person would constitute wide interest, this was not the case. Instead of his death being the main topic on the news, it was instead the mysterious disappearance of the solid fuel that got the attention of society.

The qualities it had were believed to be durable enough to take on a nuclear strike and had mysterious properties that were yet to be fully researched.

While his life had come to an end on that day, in some sick twist of fate, luck, or coincidence this event gave Azi Montagne a new opportunity in his life's tale, an opportunity to travel through tales.