Alex looked intently at the orb, seated back on the strange, patterned grass. Every time he touched the object—a swirling sphere of black, gold, and silver—he heard the cold, emotionless voice repeat its mantra. It sounded like a badly programmed machine.
He touched it again, and the voice repeated:
“ITEM – GIFT OF THE WORLD. USES LEFT – 1/1. RARITY – RELIC. ACCEPT OR REJECT.”
Alex kicked the ground in a fit of pure, desperate anger. He should have been gone for good by now, dead in a government mortuary, finally free from the crushing weight of his inheritance. But here he was, inexplicably alive in the middle of nowhere, his surroundings unnaturally pristine and silent.
silent.
Alexander Sobreviviente, or Alex for short, was the son of Jonathan Sobreviviente, the second-generation business tycoon of the Sobreviviente industries. His lineage traced back to the most successful person of the 20th century: the one and only Alfred Sobreviviente.
The old man was everything a man aspired to be. He was a soldier by eighteen, a veteran of both World Wars, retiring at forty-three as a Colonel in the Spanish army. He migrated to California, started a grocery store, and expanded it into a global enterprise in just three years. He fell in love with a young woman who turned out to be a member of Italian royalty; marrying her made him royalty by association. By the time Alex's father, Jonathan, took the reins, Sobreviviente Industries was the largest corporation the world had ever seen.
But fate was different for the successor. Jonathan Sobreviviente was a spoiled kid, born when his father was already the richest man in the world and a royal consort. He was never trained in the hard craft of managing the colossal corporation. Under his inept leadership, the company bled out, sinking into bankruptcy in under two decades.
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The Sobreviviente family faced a barrage of criticism and public scorn they were never equipped to handle. The corporation was in deep debt; they couldn't even pay the salaries owed to thousands of employees. Various legal cases piled up.
Alex, the third generation, watched the collapse. He could not bear the mounting criticism and mental pressure.
It all happened in an instant.
That day, he had slipped out of his mansion—which, thankfully, had not yet been sealed by the court—only because he wanted to pay respects at his grandfather’s grave on what would have been Alfred’s eightieth birthday.
But when he reached the plot, he saw it. People, driven by fury and a sense of betrayal, had destroyed the gravestone in anger.
He was utterly broken. He gathered himself, moving out of the cemetery like a ghost. As he stepped onto the street, the press surrounded him—a crushing tidal wave of flashbulbs and microphones.
“Mr. Sobreviviente, how does it feel to rob the poor?” A female reporter's voice cut through the noise.
“Will your father pay his employees the money they should be paid?” asked an aged male reporter, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
He had enough. He and his family had suffered enough. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his licensed revolver, a small but powerful piece. In a single, desperate, reckless instant, he pressed the barrel to his chest and pulled the trigger. He felt the sickening impact, the immediate, cold emptiness as the warmth escaped his body.
Tears welled in his eyes as the memory violently returned. He looked at the alien surroundings and back at the swirling orb.
“Where am I? What is this place? What is this symbol etched on my chest? What does Gift of the World even mean?”
He tried to calm himself, but the attempt failed. His suppressed anger burst out, pure and scalding. He threw the orb away from him and stood, shaking. He screamed up into the bright, uncaring sky, his raw voice echoing in the dead silence of the forest:
