The night felt bitter, but for Marzell, the cold was internal. It wasn't just the drop in temperature; it was the crushing realization that the mantle of provider was slipping from his grip. He felt as if the weight of the entire world had settled squarely on his shoulders. He couldn't sleep, yet he wasn't fully awake—his eyes simply drifted through the dark hours until the gray light of dawn finally broke.
He didn't wait for the sun to fully rise. Without a word, he whispered a silent goodbye to his mother and sister while they were still lost in sleep, shielded from his burden for a few hours more. Then, he stepped out into the morning and left for work.
The Under-City Runoff Vents smelled of rotten eggs and burning copper.
Marzell stood in a line of hunched, broken men and women, all bearing the shameful mark of the left wrist. They were the "Special Category"—the city's polite term for the disposable. Above them, a massive network of brass pipes and iron grates filtered the toxic alchemical waste generated by the shining upper city.
An Administrator paced in front of them, tapping a heavy, steam-powered baton against his thigh. The man's right wrist glowed with a dull, muddy brown light—a low-tier Four of Clubs. It wasn't much, but down here, it made him a god.
"Listen up, you left-handed freaks," the Administrator barked, the brass gears on his respirator whirring. "Sector Four's primary acid-valve is jammed. The sludge is backing up. You are going to wade in there, find the blockage, and clear it. If your suit breaches, don't scream. It annoys me."
He shoved a cracked, heavy canvas hazmat suit into Marzell's chest. The visor was scratched and yellowed, the rubber seals half-rotted. It offered about as much protection as wet paper.
Marzell didn't argue. He needed the hazard pay. Two weeks of this, and he could afford a single vial of the respiratory serum for his mother.
Ten minutes later, he was waist-deep in a glowing, neon-green slurry. The heat in Sector Four was suffocating, baking him alive inside the heavy suit. Searing pain lanced up his legs as the acidic runoff slowly ate through the weakened rubber of his boots.
Just endure it, Marzell told himself, gritting his teeth as he dragged a massive iron wrench through the sludge. For Mom. For Elara.
But his left wrist was humming. A cold, vibrating itch burrowed under his skin, completely at odds with the boiling heat of the sewer.
"Move faster, Côme!" the Administrator shouted from a suspended iron catwalk above. He leaned over the railing, pointing his baton down. "You miss a spot, and I'll dock your pay for the week!"
Marzell reached the jammed valve—a massive, encrusted wheel the size of a carriage door. He gripped it with both hands, straining every muscle in his back to turn it. The metal groaned.
Suddenly, a sharp, metallic CRACK echoed through the chamber.
A pressurized secondary pipe right above Marzell ruptured. A high-pressure jet of superheated alchemical acid shot straight down toward his head.
"Look out!" another worker screamed.
Marzell froze. There was no time to dodge. The sludge was too thick; his boots were stuck. Death was a fraction of a second away.
Then, the world stopped.
The roar of the bursting pipe faded into a dull, distant hum. The droplets of boiling green acid hung suspended in the air like gruesome jewels.
Marzell felt his left arm jerk upward against his will. The Blank card on his wrist shifted, the smooth silver surface rippling like water. The cold sensation flooded his veins, rushing straight to his brain.
Let's play a trick, a voice whispered in his mind. It wasn't a separate entity; it was his own voice, twisted into something gleeful and deeply insane.
When time snapped back into motion, the torrent of acid crashed down exactly where Marzell was standing. The green sludge swallowed him whole.
Up on the catwalk, the Administrator sighed in annoyance. "Great. Someone get a hook. We need to fish his suit out before it clogs the drain again."
"Are you sure about that, boss?"
The Administrator whipped around.
Marzell was sitting casually on the catwalk railing right beside the Administrator. His legs were crossed, his chin resting in his palm. He wasn't wearing the hazmat suit anymore. He was in his normal clothes, completely dry, completely unharmed.
The Administrator stumbled backward, his eyes bugging out of his skull. He looked down at the sewer below—the hazmat suit was still there, melting into the acid. Then he looked back at Marzell.
"How... how did you get up here?" the Administrator stammered, raising his baton with a trembling hand. "You were just—"
"I was," Marzell agreed, tilting his head. The wide, unnatural smirk returned to his face. "But then I thought, 'Why take a bath when the view from up here is so much better?'"
It was a spatial swap. An illusion. A trick. The Joker card hadn't just moved him; it had rewritten the reality of those three seconds, placing an empty suit in the acid while pulling him to safety.
Marzell hopped off the railing, taking a step toward the Administrator. The Four of Clubs on the man's wrist flickered weakly in the presence of the hidden Joker.
"You're a demon," he whispered, terrified of the manic gleam in Marzell's eyes.
"No," Marzell whispered back, catching his baton with just his left index finger and thumb, halting it effortlessly. The metallic card on his wrist gleamed. "I'm just a guy working for minimum wage. But if you dock my pay..."
Marzell leaned in close, the breathy chuckle escaping his lips again. "...I might just swap your lungs with the sludge down there. Wouldn't that be a hilarious joke?"
The Administrator dropped the baton, nodding frantically, his face pale as a ghost.
Marzell stepped back, the terrifying smile immediately dropping from his face as if a string had been cut. He looked at his left hand, his own heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
He had saved his own life. But the power... it wasn't a tool. It was a disease. And it was starting to rewrite his mind.