Chapter One: Kindness Is for Chumps
It was late.
The kind of late where even the janitor had gone home, and the building creaked in solitude. Outside the windows, the city hummed—cars, sirens, and flickering neon signs promising everything from salvation to sushi at half-price. But inside the office of Crestview Solutions Pvt. Ltd., one desk still glowed with life.
That desk belonged to Aarav.
Thirty. Single. Balding—but hiding it well. Dependable, efficient, soft-spoken. The guy who remembered your birthday and made the office coffee because "no one else will." If being “nice” were a crime, he'd be serving multiple life sentences.
He adjusted his tie—he always wore one, even though the dress code was casual—and typed the last line of a report he wasn’t even supposed to write.
“Hey bro,” came Rahul's voice earlier that afternoon, flashing his teeth like a discount toothpaste model. “Mind handling my analysis report? My date’s at six and this girl’s got trust issues. Gotta be on time or she thinks I’m cheating. LOL.”
Aarav had smiled, nodded, and said, “Sure, go ahead.”
Priya had dropped by twenty minutes later, spreadsheet in hand. “Aarav, magic fingers—can you fix this pivot table? It’s being weird.”
“Of course,” he said. “Happy to help.”
It was always like this. Ever since his internship days, Aarav had been everyone's safety net. The reliable one. The pushover. The guy who stayed back while others clocked out, who absorbed blame and gave credit.
Because his mother had raised him right.
“Be kind,” she’d said. “Even when others aren't. Especially then.”
She’d said it with love, from a hospital bed he couldn’t afford to visit often.
She’d died three years ago.
At 8:47 p.m., he finally shut his laptop. The silence wrapped around him like a blanket—familiar, not exactly comforting, but expected.
He checked his phone.
Still no message.
His girlfriend, Rhea, hadn’t replied since Saturday.
Three whole days.
He stared at the last message she’d sent:
“Babe, I’m really sorry to ask, but my mom needs surgery. It’s urgent. Just 35K. Please?”
No hesitation. He transferred the money.
He even skipped lunch for a week to make up for it.
But no update since.
He frowned. A slow, sickening thought began to stir.
What if she wasn’t at the hospital?
He opened Google Maps. Traced the route with shaking fingers.
And suddenly, he was moving—stuffing his laptop into his bag, rushing out the door, adrenaline kicking in like he was about to confront a dragon.
The hospital smelled like disinfectant and despair.
He approached the front desk. The nurse looked up, polite but tired.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for a patient. Rhea Mehta. She said she was admitted last week—surgery?”
The nurse blinked, typed into her terminal. Her nails clicked.
After a moment, she looked back up. “Sorry, sir. We don’t have anyone by that name.”
He swallowed. “Can you check again? Maybe admitted under her mother’s name?”
She tried again. Shook her head. “Nope. Nothing recent.”
It felt like the floor dropped beneath him.
He didn’t call her.
Didn’t text.
Just walked. Slowly. Like his legs weren’t entirely his.
The building she lived in wasn’t far. He’d been there enough times to know her favorite neighbor, her apartment number, even where she kept the spare key.
Tonight, a luxury sedan was parked outside.
A tall man stepped out. Armani shoes, silk shirt, hair like a shampoo commercial.
Rhea followed. Smiling. Laughing. Dressed for dinner.
Behind them, a woman—her mother, the one supposedly hospitalized—emerged from the car carrying shopping bags. Branded. Expensive.
They didn’t see him. He stayed in the shadows.
The three of them entered the house like it was just another Thursday.
When the car drove off, he stayed.
He crouched near the stairwell window, eyes fixed on her living room.
Inside, Rhea and her mother were sipping wine.
“Honestly,” her mother said, setting down her glass, “you should’ve cut him loose months ago.”
Rhea snorted. “I know, right? He was just so pathetic. Said he loved me after three dates. Who does that?”
“You used him well, though. Covered rent, bills, and now this car. Not bad for a soft boy.”
Aarav didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe.
He didn’t feel angry. Not exactly. Just... scraped out. Like something had hollowed him out without asking.
His chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped out his insides and filled him with concrete.
He walked home without thinking.
Each step felt like it wasn’t his, like he was watching someone else in his clothes, heading toward a place that barely felt like home anymore.
The streetlights blurred at the edges. Cars passed. Life went on. It always did, for everyone but him.
The door clicked open. Silence swallowed him whole.
No message. No call. No apology.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. Crying required hope—hope that someone might care.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Instead, he moved like a ghost. To the cupboard. To the bottle. The one he kept for birthdays and promotions that never came.
He poured a glass. Cheap whisky. The kind that scalded your throat and made you feel something, anything.
Tonight, even pain felt like mercy.
He stepped onto the balcony. The city sprawled below him—so full of light, so indifferent.
He stared at it for a long time. At all the windows. All the lives. All the people laughing in restaurants, kissing in cars, texting people who would text back.
He raised the glass in a silent toast.
“To the idiot,” he muttered, “who thought love was enough.”
And then, like a whisper stitched into the night, he heard her voice again.
Not Rhea’s. Not anyone from this world.
His mother’s.
“Always be kind, beta. Even when others aren’t. Especially then. You be the soft in a world full of sharp edges.”
He blinked. The tears didn’t fall, but they stung anyway.
He looked at the city again. Then at his reflection in the sliding door.
Tired eyes. Crooked tie. A man who gave everything and got scraped out like trash.
His voice cracked as he whispered,
“…Did other moms not teach that too, Ma?”
No answer. Just the hum of street noise and the sharp burn of whisky as he downed the rest.
Then another. And another.
He didn’t remember crawling into bed.
Only the weight in his chest.
Like something inside him had died quietly, respectfully—so as not to bother anyone.
When he opened his eyes, the world was white.
Not poetic, not peaceful.
Blinding, sterilized, migraine-inducing office-grade white.
The kind of white that screams, “God forgot to pay the texture artists.”
He blinked. His mouth tasted like cheap whisky and betrayal. His back ached like a man who had emotionally collapsed and physically faceplanted into a mattress six hours ago.
Except... he wasn’t on a mattress.
He was lying on some kind of celestial linoleum, cold and spotless.
He sat up, groggy, confused, and somehow... insulted by the cleanliness.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
He turned.
A fat man—no offense, just fact—sat cross-legged in front of the biggest, glowy-est control panel Aarav had ever seen. We’re talking a football field-sized sci-fi mixing board covered in buttons, sliders, holograms, and a suspiciously large number of blinking red warnings.
The man wore a sunflower-yellow shirt, stretched tight across a belly that jiggled with each bite. The shirt had bold block letters that read:
“SNACK GOD – CTRL + ALT + EAT”
The chips? Family-size. The family? Presumably extinct now.
“Oh,” said the man casually, licking cheese dust from his fingers. “You’re awake. That’s... unfortunate.”
Aarav’s eyes narrowed. “Where... am I?”
“The Admin Room,” said the man, gesturing broadly to the endless white void. “Also known as the Divine Interface. Or Limbo. Or Heaven’s Dashboard. Names are fluid. Budget’s not.”
Aarav looked around. “Am I... dead?”
The god snorted. “Not yet. You're in queue. Some clerical issues. Your soul got marked for reincarnation, but the processing department? Bit of a mess these days. Mercury retrograde, soul overflow, one guy on vacation—typical divine chaos.”
He lazily waved at the control panel.
Dozens of labeled buttons blinked and shimmered.
One was marked: “UNLEASH PLAGUE (Last Used: 1357 AD)”
Another: “DRAGON MIGRATION – CAUTION: NESTING SEASON”
A third just said: “DONT PRESS – SRSLY”
Aarav stood, rubbing his temples. “So... let me get this straight. I died. But I didn’t. And now I’m in some celestial IT server room with a god who’s—sorry—actively snacking over the fate of entire worlds?”
“Look,” said the god, brushing crumbs onto the universe’s most sacred keyboard, “you’re not supposed to be conscious. You glitched into the manual queue. There’s a patch for that coming... eventually.”
He reached for a soda can labeled “Ambrosia – Now With Extra Enlightenment” and slurped.
Aarav, ignoring every instinct not to poke glowing things, walked toward the panel. “What does this button do?”
“Don’t touch that,” said the god sharply.
Click. Somewhere in a world called Arth, a mountain exploded.
The god’s eye twitched.
“Put your finger down.”
Click. Tsunami.
Click. Drought.
Thunderstorms.
An entire village spontaneously learned interpretive dance, then caught fire.
“YOU ABSOLUTE TURNIP!” the god bellowed, knocking over his soda. “These buttons control your NEXT WORLD! You're scheduled to reincarnate there!”
Aarav blinked. “...You left a heartbroken, hungover man in front of this, and you expected me to be responsible?”
“I expected you to be unconscious!”
“Well I’m awake now and I’ve got questions,” Aarav snapped, jabbing another button. Somewhere, a rain of frogs began. “This one says ‘Summon Demon Goat.’ I need to know what that looks like.”
“STOP. TOUCHING. THINGS!”
“You stop touching your arteries with cheese!”
The god lunged. Aarav ducked.
The two tumbled over the console like an angry toddler wrestling a beanbag full of fireworks. Buttons were mashed. Sliders were slid. Alarms blared.
Somewhere, an emperor turned into a chicken.
The god grabbed Aarav by the shirt. “You’re tampering with the divine framework!”
“You’re wearing socks with sandals! Are YOU even qualified?!”
“Security!” the god yelled. Nothing happened. “Oh right. Budget cuts.”
Chips flew. Sparks erupted from the console. The “DO NOT PRESS” button cracked under pressure.
Suddenly, the god went still.
He looked at the console. Then at Aarav. Then back at the console.
The volcano erupted again.
“…You just cursed your own rebirth,” the god whispered, voice eerily calm. “The world you’re about to enter? Arth? It just logged you as a ‘Disaster-born.’ You’re going in... the hard way.”
“What’s the hard way?”
The god opened a glowing vortex beneath Aarav’s feet.
“You’ll see,” he said grimly. “Born into royalty, but hated. Feared. Cursed. The nobles will despise you. Your own siblings will mock you. Enjoy the long game, chip-masher.”
“But wait—what about powers?! Compensation?! Emotional damages?!”
The god rolled his eyes. “Fine. Take your pick. Limited time offer. You get three boons.”
“I want unlimited magic, infinite item creation, and absolute knowledge.”
“…Those are literally all unlimited. And you made a mess you ain't getting shit hahahahahahaha”
“You said pick. Your not fair.”
The god sighed. “Whatever. Good luck building trauma-based empires.”
And with that—
He fell.
Spinning through realms, tossed like a sock in a divine washing machine, the last thing Aarav saw was the “Snack God” frantically rebooting the console.
And yelling,
“THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE UNIVERSES!”
