(AFK WORM) CHAPTER SEVEN

The spirit orb drifted even closer, hovering just within reach, its slit-pupiled gaze fixed upon her with an eerie, unblinking patience. Even with her growing understanding of what it represented, Shemira did not dare lift a hand toward it. Instinct held her back, the same instinct that had guided her through every step of this impossible encounter. It warned her that direct contact would forge a bond, both in magic and purpose, she was not prepared to bear yet. That before she accepted that responsibility, before she risked carrying another life’s burden within her, she needed to know who this man was and what his final moments had truly been.

As she stared into the orb, a story unfolded. There were no voices and no images, no scenes played out like memories in a dream. Instead, sensations seemed to appear around her consciousness and impressions brushed against her thoughts with gentle insistence. The spirit orb did not speak, yet it revealed things to her through a connection that was both familiar and foreign.

And as the pieces came together, that story proved heartbreakingly common for Brockton Bay.

The man had once been a dockworker. He had hauled crates under the salt-heavy wind and overseen shipments back when the Bay was still prosperous. He had been strong then, and proud, and certain that the world would continue to move forward as it always had. But when the economy collapsed and the shipping lanes dried up, so did every opportunity he had taken for granted.

The union fought for them, but there were too many workers and too few jobs left. He found himself standing in unemployment lines that circled entire blocks. He found himself returning home each night with empty hands. He found himself staring at a kitchen table surrounded by six hungry faces, his own children and the in-laws who had moved in after illness left them unable to care for themselves. The weight of their dependence pressed further upon him with every week that passed without work.

Desperation did not come immediately. It crept into his life gradually and quietly, settling in the growing gaps between meals and in the bills left unopened that accumulated beside the toaster. It arrived in the moment he could no longer shield his children from the truth. The moment he could no longer pretend to smile. 

Eventually, desperation birthed opportunity.

He had not wanted to become a criminal. He had not even considered the possibility until the day someone from one of the city’s many gangs noticed his desperation. They needed men willing to keep their heads down and follow orders without asking questions. He was willing, he was quiet, and he was terrified. In their eyes, that made him perfect.

For a while, that obedience was profitable. He told himself he would stop once everything at home was stable again. That his hands were not truly dirty. He only delivered packages. He never opened them. So whatever was inside, and whatever the recipient did with the packages, was not truly his responsibility. 

Then the Protectorate became more organized, the Wards grew more active, and an uneasy peace settled over the city. The gangs adapted as well as they could, but profit margins shrank, and so did his income.

That was what drove him to the Merchants.

Even before the sensations shifted to reflect that chapter of his life, Shemira felt her stomach clench. The Merchants were a blight on society. They took the forgotten and the vulnerable, and hollowed them out until all that remained were bodies performing the motions of living.

He had known this, and still he had joined them. He had become a drug mule.

He told himself it was temporary. He murmured apologies in his mind to the people whose lives might be ruined by what he carried. He told himself anything was better than watching his children starve, and forced himself to swallow his guilt.

Then he met the girl.

She had been jittery, bright-eyed, and far too young to have fallen so deeply into addiction. She laughed too loudly at his jokes. She tugged on his sleeve when she wanted attention. And for reasons he never understood, she called him “old man” even though he was barely in his forties. Even though the lines on his face had been carved more by stress than age. 

She sampled the drugs she carried, telling him it helped her get through the day, through the cold, through the pain. He had tried to stop her, tried to protect her, tried to imagine a better future for her, one he knew she would never give herself. But addiction was a liar. It promised comfort while it took from her piece by piece.

The day she overdosed, he found her alone, collapsed against a dumpster, her heartbeat slowing with every passing second. She had apologized for “being a bother.” She had thanked him for staying with her. And then she died in his arms, tears spilling from her eyes. 

That was when he decided he had had enough.

No more drugs. No more deliveries. No more spreading poison into his own city.

But the city had claws. And when the city sank them into a person, it rarely let go.

He needed one last run. Just one, he promised himself. Enough to cover the rent until he found honest work again. Enough to buy groceries without counting pennies at the checkout line. Enough to keep his family safe.

So he accepted a route on the outskirts of ABB territory. Riskier than usual, but still manageable. He told himself he would be careful. He would keep his head down. He would not draw attention.

He repeated the same reassurances all the way up to the moment Oni Lee appeared in front of him with that impossible, blink-and-he’s-there movement.

He did not even have time to scream before the blade passed through him, and so cleanly was it that his mind did not register the pain until he saw the blood blooming across his shirt.

His last breath tasted of regret and bitterness. Regret that he would leave his family alone in a city that did not care about them. Bitterness that he would not see his children grow. And anger—white-hot and blinding—that Oni Lee had taken everything from him. That he had died without ensuring everything would be okay without him.

And in that moment between worlds, as his life slipped free from his body, his anger had hardened into something far more intense.

A desire so potent it clung to his spirit like tar.

He wanted the ABB to fall. No, he wanted them broken, destroyed, until their influence over the Bay was nothing more than memory. Like he would be.

The orb’s pupil contracted as if in acknowledgment of his final, hateful wish. And Shemira exhaled shakily, feeling the weight of his story settle onto her shoulders like a mantle she had not asked for.