Then, slowly, carefully, he nodded in defeat. He was a player that just realized he had met his match.
Jack watched his brother process the weight of it all.
His empire, balanced on a knife’s edge. His life, no longer entirely his own. The cosmic irony of it -the man who’d stepped into another man’s life now finding his own utterly compromised.
And then -Jack twisted the knife. Because some habits die hard, and in the Otherworld, mercy was often mistaken for weakness.
“Oh, and Jacob?”
Jacob looked up, eyes wary, a man expecting another blow.
Jack’s grin widened, all teeth and no warmth.
“If I find out you’ve tried to -what’s the phrase? Delete me? Take me out?”
Jack set his drink down with a quiet, deliberate click. The sound of a lock sliding into place.
“I’ll visit you personally.”
Jacob stilled, a statue carved from corporate ambition and atavistic fear. Jack knew that he might have been laying it on too thick, but he didn’t know this man. All he knew was what he had learned from the internet, watching interviews and reading articles on him. Jacob was ruthless. Full of guile. And he was Fae’Ri. That alone told Jack everything he needed to know.
For despite how long the man had been living his life, he was still an imposter. A thief. And not someone to be trusted. Not until he’d proven himself.
Jack spoke a phrase in a tongue he was sure Jacob would understand. Shifting languages with an ease born of years spent among the Fae’Ri of the Otherworld.
Jacob blanched, and sweat visibly beaded on his brow before trailing down his temple, where a vein throbbed aggressively.
“I went the polite way this time.” Jack exhaled, stretching slightly like a predator after a satisfying hunt. “I wanted to be civil. Open up negotiations. Be diplomatic.”
He let his voice drop, each word a stone sinking into dark water.
“But if you try me?”
Jacob’s pulse visibly ticked in his neck -fight-or-flight instincts warring with his years of corporate training.
Jack leaned in, close enough that Jacob could feel the heat of his breath.
“I’ve lived a life you could never dream of.”
He let that sink in, words heavy with the weight of worlds Jacob had never seen, dangers he’d never faced, powers he’d never touched.
“You might have lived my life, Jacob.”
A pause. Heavy. Theatrical.
“But you haven’t lived mine.”
The tension stretched between them like a high wire over an abyss -dangerous, electric, alive.
Finally, Jacob swallowed, then gave a stiff nod. Not agreement. Complete surrender.
Jack leaned back, grinning like a cat that not only got the canary but negotiated a steady supply and retirement benefits. The Cheshire himself would be envious.
And just like that -negotiations were over. The karmic balance sheet was settled, at least for now.
Next it was a matter of hammering out the fine print. The devil in the details, as they say.
The details of who Jack was going to be now. Where he would go. What his life would be. The shape of a future neither of them had anticipated.
Outside, the world continued on as if nothing had changed. Eight million souls in the city, each caught in their own dramas, unaware that in a penthouse above them, a new reality had been negotiated.
That moments ago, two would-be brothers sat across from each other and unknowingly decided the fate of the world.
∞
They had talked long into the night, discussing the details of their arrangement, testing the waters of their newfound understanding -if it could even be called that. More like a détente between nuclear powers, each wary of the other’s capabilities, each knowing mutually assured destruction awaited one wrong move.
By the time they parted ways, the building was nearly empty. The offices, once humming with productivity, had long since fallen into a deep, corporate slumber. Only the janitors doing their nightly cleaning, and security teams remained. The subjects of a king, patrolling the halls of his palace. Some with eyes on screens filled with silent camera feeds, unaware they were guarding a kingdom whose throne was now shared.
Jack had walked out that night feeling amused, victorious, and untethered. A man without a past, but with an unlimited expense account.
A man who had just carved out a place in this new, old world.
∞
Despite what he’d said about stopping in occasionally, he had rarely been back. Three years of radio silence, broken only by the trail of extravagant purchases that marked his path around the globe like breadcrumbs for anyone bothering to follow.
The truth was, he had been too busy rediscovering the world. This world. The one he’d left behind. The one that had changed while he was away, growing and evolving like a child you don’t see for years.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He had immersed himself in it, lived out all those childhood dreams that once seemed so distant, so impossible. The bucket list of a man who’d seen other realms and still found wonder in his own.
Everything had changed, from technology to entertainment -nothing was the same. Oh there were echoes, but advancements were leaps and bounds ahead of where he last remembered. It was like the world had been reborn as a sci-fi novel.
The smartphone was a huge adjustment. There had been nothing like it in the Otherworld, though they had their own means of communication. But the internet was a beast all its own. And Jack could tell that it had taken over the world like a plague. He wasn't able to tell if mankind had formed a symbiotic relationship with modern technology. Or if it was more viral, or parasitic in nature.
Either way, he knew that he couldn't just ignore it. So instead he dove in feet first.
He had walked the mountains of Tibet, his boots pressing into paths worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, sitting in silent meditation with monks who looked at him with knowing eyes and told him nothing he hadn’t already realized for himself. Their peaceful existence both alien and familiar to a man who had learned stillness as a survival skill.
He had surfed the thunderous waves of Hawaii and Australia, the salt burning his throat, the sun warm against his skin, the rush of it all exhilarating -and yet, still, something was missing. The constant danger, perhaps. The high stakes. When you’ve surfed on the back of a sentient wave in a sea of liquid mana, Earth’s oceans feel... tame.
He had walked the neon streets of Tokyo, the quiet ruins of Rome, the rain-slicked alleys of London. He had watched people, listened to their stories, tried to understand where he fit among them. A man returned from another world, trying to remember how to be Earthly. How to be human.
For a while, it had been enough. The novelty of normalcy, the embrace of the mundane.
He had even found fleeting companionship -women drawn to something in him, something feral, something untamed. Something they couldn’t name but wanted to touch, to taste, to understand. They never did, of course. How could they? How do you explain to someone that you’ve lived through things that only fit into stories -that you’ve made deals with things older and stranger than anything she’s ever known? That you’ve seen beauty and horror beyond human comprehension?
But nothing lasted.
Because nothing here had stakes. Nothing here felt real, not after what he’d seen. But more especially, what he had lost. Who he had lost. Like watching a movie after being in war -the drama seems hollow, the explosions too clean.
Until the dungeons appeared.
Then?
Then, everything changed. The game board flipped, rules rewrote themselves, and the fabric between worlds thinned.
And Jack found himself truly smiling for the first time in a long time.
∞
Jack walked through the underground parking lot, and stepped into the private elevator, crossing his arms as it hummed to life. He leaned against the cool steel of the wall, eyes flicking to the security camera in the corner. He gave it a lazy salute, knowing full well security would be watching. Just like old times.
The city stretched out behind him through the glass panels of the elevator shaft -New York City, bright and endless, pulsing with the sheer weight of humanity. A sea of lights, each one a life, a story, a soul unaware that their world had shifted into a new paradigm. And the new reality was full of potential, and danger, in a way that their normal life had rarely ever been.
He had forgotten how loud the world was. Even underground, the heartbeat of the metropolis vibrated beneath his feet. It was the biggest contrast to the Otherworld -the absolute density of human life.
Most of the places he had lived in the Otherworld had been different. Some were teeming with life, sure, but it had been diverse. Countless species, thousands of variations of sentient life. Humans had been but one of many species and races of people. Albeit a very influential faction.
Here, they were everything. The beginning and end of the story, at least in their own minds.
On a whim, Jack decided to take a detour.
He pressed the button for the main lobby.
∞
Jack closed his eyes briefly. He had been gone too long.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and the noise of the city disappeared behind the thick walls of the main lobby. The pristine silence of Emrys Technologies’ greeted Jack with a clinical detachment.
It was sleek, modern, cold- a temple to success. A cathedral to capitalism.
Jack let out a low whistle as he took in the towering glass walls, the shining marble floors, the high-tech security measures that were undoubtedly scanning him as he stepped forward.
If security had been tight before, it was even tighter now. He noted the extra personnel, the subtle changes in camera angles, the additional layers of screening at the entrances. The practiced vigilance of a fortress preparing for siege.
Jacob was being careful.
Good. He needed to be. For what was coming.
It suggested he was paying attention. Which meant he understood the shifting landscape. Which signaled the appearance of the dungeons had triggered his own alarms.
Jack made a point of avoiding most of the cameras, but he didn’t skulk. He wasn’t some thief in the night, some assassin in the shadows. He simply moved naturally, weaving through the flow of people, looking for all the world like he belonged. The perfect camouflage -confidence.
The main lobby had changed slightly, with a few minor remodels here and there. The rotating doors were no longer novel to him. No longer a strange artifact of a world he’d almost forgotten.
Even with the brief walk through the lobby, Jack could appreciate the changes to the decor. The place screamed money. It had the same overwhelming presence as the lobby of the One World Trade Center, built to impress, to remind anyone who entered that they were small. That they were insignificant next to the greatness of human achievement.
He smirked. Nice to see Jacob was as subtle as ever.
His boots made soft, deliberate taps against the floor as he approached the reception desk. The woman behind it was dealing with another pedestrian, offering the kind of polished, corporate smile that came with obscene amounts of customer service training. The smile of someone who would maintain perfect pleasantness while the world burned around them. Remember the orchestra on the Titanic? Yeah, sort of like that.
She looked just as he remembered -blond, attractive, and no longer the same nervous-but-efficient receptionist. A creature of innocence in a building full of predators.
No, he could tell there was something different about her. A confidence that hadn’t been there before. Beware the white rabbit. The way she held herself -spine straighter, chin higher. A few years had given her something. Not quite power, but the awareness of her own worth in this glass and steel ecosystem. The practiced poise of someone who’d survived long enough in corporate waters to know exactly where she stood in the food chain.
Her smile bloomed naturally before freezing in place when she got a proper look at him. Recognition hit her like a slap.
Then something shifted in her eyes -a flash of heat, quickly masked but unmistakable. The kind of look that suggested she’d thought about him more than once in the years since their last encounter.
“Jack!” she exclaimed, his name escaping her lips like a secret she’d been keeping. She flushed immediately, but didn’t look away. Instead, she leaned forward slightly, her posture opening toward him. “I mean -Mr. Emrys. Sir. It’s been... ages.”
There was something deliberate in how she said it. Definitely not the stammering, flustered Mindy of three years ago. This woman had rehearsed this moment, perhaps dozens of times in her mind. The chance encounter with the mysterious twin who’d swept through the lobby like a storm and then vanished without explanation.
Jack grinned at her, easy and warm, like reuniting with an old friend.
“It’s nice to see you too, Mindy,” he said, his voice easy, familiar. “And it’s still just Jack.”
Her blush deepened, but her smile turned knowing. A shared memory between them. “Of course it is. How could I forget?”
She adjusted her hair, but what had once been a nervous tic now seemed deliberate. A practiced movement designed to draw attention to the elegant curve of her neck, the diamond stud earrings that caught the light. Corporate camouflage with just enough personality to stand out. To be remembered.
“I- yeah! It’s been a while,” she said, voice steadier now, gaze meeting his directly. “You look... well, you look good. Really good.”
She said it with the confidence of a woman who’d decided life was too short for subtlety. Who’d grown comfortable in her own skin during the years he’d been away.
She had planned for this, and she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.
- Followers go up? Boom, bonus chapter.
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