The city lights usually looked beautiful from the top floor of the bank, but tonight, they felt like cold, distant eyes watching Ozriel make the biggest mistake of his life. As a senior bank manager, his life was built on numbers, risk assessments, and cold hard facts. Yet, when it came to Marcus and Elias, his logic had completely failed him. They had been his friends since university, the kind of people he thought he could trust with his life.
Marcus sat across from him, tapping a frantic rhythm on the mahogany desk. Elias stood by the window, looking out with a nervous energy that Ozriel mistook for genuine fear of their failing business. They needed a massive loan, an amount that the bank would never approve without a rock-solid guarantor.
Ozriel had the credentials and the standing to make it happen.
"Are you sure about this, Ozriel?" Marcus asked, his voice shaking slightly. "We just need this one infusion of capital to clear the warehouse debt. We will have the first repayment ready by next month. I swear on my life, man."
Ozriel looked at the documents spread out before him. His gut twisted, a primal warning he chose to ignore. "You guys are like brothers to me. If this is what it takes to keep your dream alive, I will do it. But you have to be careful. The secondary lender you mentioned, the one providing the bulk of the funds, he is not a standard creditor."
Elias turned from the window, a small, grateful smile playing on his lips. "We know he is tough, but he is the only one who would move this fast. With you as the guarantor, his interest rates are actually manageable. You are saving us, Ozriel. Truly."
With a heavy sigh and a flick of his wrist, Ozriel signed the papers. He did not know that he was signing his own death warrant. He did not know that the secondary lender was not just a loan shark, but a notorious mob lord whose name was whispered in the darkest corners of the underworld. He thought he was being a hero. In reality, he was just a lamb leading himself to the slaughter.
Two weeks later, the world fell apart. Marcus and Elias vanished. Their phones were disconnected, their apartments were stripped bare, and the business they claimed to be saving did not even exist. The bank was the first to come calling, but they were the least of his worries. The mob lord, a man known only as Victor, did not care about bank procedures or legal litigation.
Ozriel was snatched off the street on a Tuesday evening. He did not even have time to scream before a heavy bag was shoved over his head and a taser sent a surge of agonizing electricity through his spine. When the bag was finally removed, he was strapped to a cold, metal table in a room that smelled of rust and bleach.
Victor stood over him, wearing a suit that cost more than Ozriel's annual salary. He was calmly snapping on a pair of latex gloves. "You have a very impressive medical record, Ozriel," Victor said, his voice as smooth as silk and just as cold. "No history of smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, and remarkably healthy kidneys."
"Where are they?" Ozriel gasped, his breath coming in ragged bursts. "Where are Marcus and Elias? They took the money! I was just the guarantor!"
Victor chuckled, a sound that lacked any trace of humor. "Oh, they took the money, alright. But they did not take it from me. They work for me. You see, the loan was never the product. You were."
Ozriel's heart froze. The realization hit him like a physical blow. The "loan" was a lure. The entire setup was a trap designed to find someone with clean health, a stable job, and no immediate family who would come looking for them too quickly. He looked at the surgical tools laid out on a nearby tray, glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights.
"You are going to help us settle the debt," Victor continued, picking up a scalpel. "A healthy liver brings in a staggering amount on the black market. Your corneas, your heart, even your skin. By the time we are done, the debt will be paid in full, with a little extra for the trouble Marcus and Elias went through to find you."
The pain that followed was beyond anything Ozriel could have imagined. They did not give him enough anesthesia to fully black out; they wanted him conscious for as long as possible to ensure the organs remained viable during the initial harvest. He watched through a haze of agony as they worked. He felt the cold air hit his internal cavity. He felt his life force leaking out onto the bloodied bed.
As his vision began to fade into a dull, gray blur, he heard the chirp of a mobile phone. Victor stepped away from the table, pulling off a blood-stained glove to answer it. He put the call on speaker, resting the phone on a counter near Ozriel's head.
"Is it done?" a familiar voice asked. It was Marcus. He sounded relaxed, almost bored.
Victor looked down at the dying man on the table. "Almost. We are halfway through the major extractions. He was a perfect match for the client in Dubai. The payment cleared ten minutes ago."
"Good," Marcus laughed, and the sound of it was a jagged blade in Ozriel's soul. "Tell Elias to get the car ready. We have already spotted our next target. A young teacher at the primary school. No family, very trusting. We should be able to get her to sign the papers by Friday."
Ozriel's eyes widened. They were doing it again. He wasn't just a victim; he was part of a cycle of slaughter. He felt a surge of pure, unadulterated hatred that momentarily burned through the numbing cold of death. He regretted everything. He regretted his kindness. He regretted his trust. Most of all, he regretted that he would die while those monsters continued to walk the earth.
"I should have killed them," he thought, his consciousness flickering like a dying candle. I should have burned it all down.
Just as the final darkness began to pull him under, a sound echoed in his mind. It was not the sound of the surgical room. It was a sharp, digital chime that felt as though it were being broadcast directly into his soul.
[The Slave Contract Binding System has found its host!]
A glowing blue screen appeared in his failing vision, hovering in the air where only he could see it. The text was sharp and crystalline.
[Current State: Terminal. Vital signs failing.]
[Would you like to become binded to the system? This would give you another shot at life albeit in a different world.]
Ozriel did not care if it was a hallucination. He did not care if he was selling his soul to something even worse than Victor. If there was a single chance to live, to breathe, and to perhaps one day find a way to vent the rage boiling in his heart, he would take it.
"Yes," he whispered, though no sound left his throat. 'Yes!'
[Binding initiated. Synchronization at one hundred percent.]
[Transferring host to the world of Aethelgard.]
On the bloodied bed, Victor was reaching for his scalpel again when he froze. The dying man's body began to glow with an intense, sapphire light. The blood on the sheets began to hum with a strange frequency.
What the hell? Victor muttered, stepping back and shielding his eyes.
A portal of pure azure energy tore open in the middle of the room. It crackled with an otherworldly power, the air smelling of ozone and ancient static. Before Victor or his goons could react, the light intensified into a blinding flash. When it cleared, the metal table was empty. Ozriel was gone, leaving behind nothing but the fading scent of a world he would never see again.