The city below looked like a broken circuit board. Millions of lights, millions of lives, all blinking, all moving, all pretending to matter. From the 97th floor of Voss Tower, Elias Voss watched it without blinking. Rain hit the glass, blurred the world, but he didn't care. He had seen this view a thousand times. Same skyline. Same people. Same lies.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes flat. On the desk, three screens glowed: stock charts, neural data, a live feed of his company's main lab. His brain chip, SoulLink 7, hummed quietly in his temple, feeding him numbers, emotions, even the faintest tremors of fear in his employees' voices. He didn't need to look at their faces. He could feel them. Weak. Greedy. Afraid.
"Final offer is 4.2 billion," said the voice in his earpiece. One of his lawyers, probably in some glass office in London, pretending to be calm. "They want a 72-hour window to confirm."
Elias didn't answer. He just stared at the rain. The numbers meant nothing. The money meant nothing. He had more than he could spend in ten lifetimes. He owned cities, companies, even governments, in ways no one could prove. And still, there was this hole inside him. Not pain. Not sadness. Just… nothing. A clean, empty space where feeling should be.
He remembered the first time he noticed it. He was ten. The Smile Project had just finished its first phase. They had erased his fear, his anger, his tears. They had taught him to smile even when they burned his skin, even when they broke his fingers. That night, in the white room, he looked in the mirror and realized he didn't feel anything. Not relief. Not pride. Not even satisfaction. Just a cold, perfect stillness. That stillness had followed him into the real world. It had made him rich. It had made him powerful. It had made him a monster.
"Elias?" the lawyer said again. "Do we accept?"
Elias finally moved. He tapped a key. The deal was accepted. No celebration. No smile. Just a small, mechanical motion, like a machine completing a task.
"Good," the lawyer said, relief bleeding into his voice. "I'll send the confirmation."
Elias pulled the earpiece out and dropped it on the desk. Silence. The only sound was the rain and the low hum of the building's systems. He stood, walked to the window, and pressed his palm against the cold glass. Outside, the city lights swam in the wet darkness. Somewhere down there, people were fighting, loving, dying, all for reasons he couldn't understand. All for feelings he couldn't feel.
He thought about the girl again. The one from the Smile Project. They had called her Subject 7. She had been his age, maybe younger. They had put her in the next room, same white walls, same machines. He had seen her once, through the observation glass. She had looked at him, eyes wide, lips moving, but no sound. He hadn't helped her. He hadn't even tried. He had just watched. And later, when they told him she was dead, he hadn't felt anything. Not guilt. Not grief. Just the same clean, empty stillness.
A flicker in the glass caught his eye.
He froze.
Outside the window, in the rain, there was a girl.
She stood on the ledge, maybe ten meters away, pressed against the glass like she was part of the building. Long black hair, wet, clinging to her face. Pale skin, almost glowing in the city light. A simple white dress, torn at the edges, fluttering in the wind. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't crying. She was just… there. Watching him.
Elias didn't move. He didn't blink. He stared at her, and she stared back. Her eyes were dark, too dark, like empty holes. But there was something in them. Recognition. Hunger.
He turned his head slightly. The office was empty. His assistant had left hours ago. The security cameras showed nothing but rain and glass. No girl. No one on the ledge.
He looked back at the window.
She was still there.
A cold feeling, not fear, not excitement, but something close to it, crawled up his spine. He had seen ghosts before. Not real ones. Hallucinations. Side effects of the Smile Project, of the drugs, of the neural implants. But this felt different. This felt… real.
He stepped back from the window, slowly, like a predator testing the air. He picked up his phone, opened the security feed again. Nothing. Just rain. Just glass.
He looked up.
She was gone.
For a second, he thought he had imagined it. Then he saw her again, lower down, on a ledge two floors below. She wasn't falling. She wasn't moving. She was just standing there, staring up at his window, her face tilted toward him like a flower toward the sun.
Elias felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Interest.
He didn't call security. He didn't panic. He just watched. He watched as she moved, not like a human, but like a shadow, sliding from one ledge to another, always staying in the rain, always staying out of the cameras. She wasn't trying to get in. She wasn't trying to scare him. She was just… watching.
After a while, she stopped. She looked directly at him, raised one hand, and pressed her palm against the glass, mirroring his own. Then she smiled.
It wasn't a kind smile. It wasn't a happy smile. It was a smile that knew too much. A smile that had seen him at his worst, at his most broken, at his most empty.
And for the first time in years, Elias smiled back.
Not because he was happy.
Because he was bored no more.
***
He left the office an hour later. The rain had turned into a heavy downpour. His car waited at the curb, black, silent, like a coffin on wheels. The driver opened the door, but Elias didn't look at him. He slid into the back seat, eyes fixed on the city.
He didn't go home immediately. He told the driver to circle the city, to take the long route. He wanted to see the streets, the people, the lies. He wanted to see if she was still there.
She was.
She appeared in reflections. In shop windows. In the wet asphalt. In the rearview mirror, sitting in the empty seat beside the driver. Always the same: pale skin, black hair, white dress, dark eyes, that knowing smile.
She didn't speak. She didn't touch. She just watched.
Elias didn't feel fear. He felt something deeper. A cold, sharp curiosity. Who was she? What did she want? Why could only he see her?
When the car finally turned into the long driveway of his mansion, he looked at the mirror one last time.
She was gone.
The mansion was huge, modern, cold. Glass, steel, concrete. No warmth. No life. Just space. He walked through the empty halls, past silent staff, into his study. The room was full of relics: old books, ancient weapons, artifacts from forgotten cults. He poured himself a drink, sat in his chair, and stared at the rain outside.
Then he felt it.
A presence.
He turned.
She was there.
Not outside. Not in a reflection.
In the room.
Standing in the corner, half in shadow, half in the dim light. Her dress was dry now. Her hair was no longer wet. Her eyes were fixed on him.
Elias didn't move. He didn't speak. He just watched.
After a long silence, she stepped forward. Her voice was soft, like wind through dead leaves.
"You're bored, Elias."
He didn't answer.
"You've been bored for years. Rich. Powerful. Empty."
Still, he said nothing.
She smiled. "I can fix that."
Elias finally spoke. His voice was calm, cold, like a blade.
"Who are you?"
Her smile widened. "I'm the ghost you've been waiting for."
And in that moment, Elias knew.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This wasn't a dream.
This was the beginning of something much darker.
And for the first time in his life, he was not bored.
He was alive.