*Beep, beep, beep-*

A cheap alarm clock rang out from the ground near the bed. The sound echoed across the empty room, filling the space with its shrill tone. The lack of furniture offered no escape from the noise.

*Yawnnnn*

"Huh… what time is it?" The words fell out of Griffin's tired mouth before he turned over and looked towards the alarm clock.

"9:25am?! I'm late for work!" Griffin shouted to himself as he sprung up and sprinted to his closet, quickly throwing on a suit. 

He peeked in the mirror to check himself before walking out the door. His brown hair, grey eyes, black-rimmed glasses and lanky form looked to be in good enough shape. The suit clung to him, possibly a bit too loosely.

'Shit! I'm going to be late for work… If only I didn't get home so late last night because of that weird old man.'

Memories flooded Griffin's mind, bits and pieces of his dialogue with the aged man drifted into his head.

~~~~

"You know, when I was your age… I had much greater ambition…" A voice crept out from the dark, accompanied by some shuffling.

The old drifter turned his head to watch as Griffin walked in front of him on the sidewalk.

Griffin turned to look down at the old man, his eyes drifting to the cup filled with spare change. He could barely make out any of the man's features in the dimly lit streets. The only thing that Griffin could pick out was an odd marking or some sort of tattoo on the mans hands. It resembled writing, but in no language Griffin could recall.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry but I don't think you know anything about me…" Griffin retorted.

He was met with silence as he stared downwards, before the old man matched his gaze and smiled, revealing strangely white teeth. They reflected almost too much of the light, causing Griffin to squint slightly.

"You can't just hope for change to come like me, haha!" A oddly exuberant laugh was heard from the man's mouth.

Then, the old man swiftly reached out and grabbed Griffin's collar before leaning towards his ear.

"You have to reach out and grasp it!" He spoke slowly, beginning with a lower tone before reaching an almost yelling volume.

Griffin struggled to get the vagrant's hand off of his shirt, his efforts being matched with cackling laughter from the aged man.

"Get off of me, man!" 

Finally, he used all of his strength to wrench the man's hand off of him and step away.

"Keep to yourself! I hope I never see you again around here." He firmly told the man off, despite feeling quite flustered from the interaction.

Turning away and walking down the sidewalk, he couldn't stop thinking about what the man said. Griffin eventually reached his destination: the bus stop.

He looked towards the schedule on the wall and then down to his phone, noticing that it was 8:02 PM... he missed the last bus by two minutes.

"God damn it!"

~~~~

'"God damn it" is right…'

Griffin thought to himself, pondering what the old man could have meant.

'Maybe I do need to show some more initiative… I feel like I've been walking on thin ice lately at work.'

He slapped his cheeks to wake himself up.

'Thinking about this is only slowing me down, I need to get to my office fast!' Griffin cut his line of thinking short as he ran downstairs and caught the next bus.

As he rode along, a picturesque metropolis filled with buildings of all shapes and sizes passed him by. Countless people from every culture walked down the sidewalks, talking with each other and enjoying their lives.

However, Griffin paid no attention to the landscape or people, as nervous thoughts raced through his brain. 

After a short ride, Griffin arrived at the door to his office. He scanned his badge and walked through the arched entryway, ascending the stairs.

Upon opening the door to his department, he noticed a group of his coworkers preparing for a meeting. Slowly, he approached them.

"So what's the commotion about?"

"Oh… look who decided to show up." His question was met with a sarcastic remark from Kyle, the manager of his team.

"I apologize… I didn't mean for this to happen… I just wasn't able to make the bus last night after working overtime…" Griffin fidgeted with his hands while speaking.

"I don't care about your excuses. All you are doing is slowing us down."

"…"

"Get your ass in the conference room, senior leadership has something they want to tell our department."

Griffin took his bag with him and followed Kyle. He sat down alongside his coworkers and looked over to the men in black suits sitting at the front of the room.

Just as one of them opened his mouth to speak, a sharp pain gripped Griffin' heart. His vision blurred and began to fade.

~~~~

"Plea… Whoever hears th…"

A voice echoed in Griffin's mind.

"My creations… they've betr… Ripped me apa… Scattered my…"

"-am using all of my remaining pow… to contact some.. who can…"

"-save Durandal."

The voice slowed and stopped.

~~~~

*Rustle, rustle-*

Griffin's vision began to clear as he blinked his eyes. The gripping pain faded away as he was shaken.

"Wake up, nimrod. You get here late then doze off… well, whatever. It doesn't matter in the end anyways."

Griffin looked straight ahead to see Kyle's normally pudgy face and misaligned toupée, but something just looked off.

'What was that… and where did everyone else go?' He thought silently to himself, barely able to reflect on what just happened. 

"Hello? Are you there?" Kyle snapped his fingers in front of Griffin's face.

"Uh, sorry Kyle, I just had this horrible headache… I think I fainted."

"Oh sure you did… jackass." Kyle muttered the last part to himself quietly. "Anyways, get your stuff together and get out."

"What do you mean?" Griffin squinted in confusion while replying.

"Were you not paying attention at all? Typical lowlife... Well if you really want to know, senior leadership laid off our department. We're no longer needed due to "improvements in machine learning" or some bullshit."

"You have got to be joking…" Griffin instantly responded with the first thought that came to his mind.

"Do I look like a comedian to you? I'm serious. Look over there."

Griffin's eyes dart over to his desk. He quickly realizes that none of his coworkers are still in the office and his things are in a neatly packed box.

"No way…"

"Well, I'm done here! Get your ass up and leave, I need to stay and check if anyone left some goodies behind…"

Thinking to himself, Griffin questioned if he really heard his manager say that.

'What a scumbag… but if this is all real, what am I supposed to do?'

Not wanting to interact with Kyle any longer, he stood himself up and walked over to grab his box of things.

On top of the box was a sticker that read: "Thank you for your service to the company!"

He crumbled it and tossed it to the side before picking up the box and walking out the door. He descended the stairs, walked through the front doors, and reached the sidewalk.

Once again he travelled to the bus stop, eventually sitting on the nearby bench to think over this morning.

'One thing after another, I can't seem to catch a break.'

As he began to look off into the distance, a bus pulled up.

"Well at least I'm in time for this one, haha…"

He chuckled sheepishly to himself as he stepped onto the bus. He walked to a private section in the back while staring at the floor.

Sitting down, he looked upwards. Rather quickly, he noticed that this was not the same bus that usually stopped here. 

Before he could question it any further, he began to feel the same pain from the conference room earlier. His vision faded much quicker this time and he fell deeper into his seat.

The surroundings faded to black, leaving an empty void where Griffin once stood.

Griffin felt slightly more conscious this time though, his body allowing him to look down and see an outline of himself floating in this black space.

'What is this…' He thought to himself as a light slowly began to glow in front of him.

No bigger than an apple, it began to fill the void with its contrasting bright light. 

'Argh, my eyes…'

At this moment, voices boomed through Griffin's pounding head.

"Plea… Whoever hears th…"

-"save Durandal"

He winced in pain. 

'Aghh, it's so loud and the light is killing me…"

A familiar voice spoke to Griffin again.

"You have to reach out and grasp it!"

Hearing this, Griffin thought of only one way out of this situation. He slowly raised his arm forward towards the blinding light. His fingers stretched out and cradled the side of it, blocking the glow as they wrapped around it.

As soon as it was completely covered, a deafening silence spread across the space as Griffin was hit with an enormous impact in his chest.