The night before his disappearance, he discovered something critical and important.
Ren stared at the screen, chest rising and falling too fast.
His hands hovered over the keyboard for a second longer. His fingers, still trembling from what he'd uncovered, hovered as if unsure whether to do more—send a second warning, sound a louder alarm. But there was no time.
A final packet of truth uploaded through the confidential channel Aika had given him, buried deep within a secure legal inbox that bypassed all internal filters.
The file was gone now, delivered and encrypted.
If anything happened to him… at least the truth wouldn't vanish with him.
It had taken him the better part of a week to cross-check the strings. The anomalies in financial logs. The usage trails that looked too perfect, too scripted. And tonight, in a quiet hour after most of the building had gone silent, he found it—a backdoor rerouting both money and blame. The signature embedded in the code wasn't even subtle. It was arrogant. It thought no one would ever look this deep.
But he had.
And now… he knew why they wanted him gone.
The night of his disappearance.
The lights in the server room flickered above his head—just for a moment. A ripple in the ceiling like a prelude to a storm. Ren glanced up.
And then, the door behind him clicked.
He froze.
He hadn't locked it.
But that wasn't the sound of someone opening the door. It was the reverse. The soft click of an override command being issued remotely.
The server room… was now locked from the outside.
Ren turned toward the handle, wheeled himself across the short distance, and tried it.
No movement.
The handle didn't even budge.
He swallowed hard.
A camera in the upper corner blinked at him—but something in its lens looked wrong. Dimmer. Or maybe disabled. Had they looped the feed?
His breath began to rise again, shallow and uneven.
"Okay. Okay… breathe," he whispered to himself. "You've handled worse. You're not—this isn't—"
But the air felt thinner.
Ren looked back at the glowing monitors. He knew they could see everything he saw. Or they had, until he sent that file. His chest squeezed tighter with every passing second. The sterile hum of the server stacks now sounded too loud—like it was pressing in from all sides.
Then… a noise.
Outside.
Heavy footsteps.
More than one pair.
He backed his wheelchair away from the door instinctively, heart pounding. The walls, the silence—it was too much. He tried to focus on logic, on breath regulation, the way he'd been taught after the surgeries. But the edge was fraying.
The panic attacks hadn't come in months.
He thought he had them under control.
But now—now the lock, the silence, the pressure in his chest—
It surged.
A memory slammed into him: his body limp on hospital sheets after the accident. Trapped. Helpless. A fire in his spine that stole everything.
He clawed at air, trying to ground himself.
He gripped the edge of the desk.
It didn't work.
The pressure built like a tidal wave in reverse—crushing him inward instead of pulling him out. His lungs wouldn't cooperate. His hands slipped from the wheel. His head felt light and hot and distant.
"Just breathe—" he rasped, voice barely there. "Stay awake. Don't—don't—"
He didn't finish.
His vision blurred.
Then… collapsed.
He slumped forward in his chair, unconscious.
The door clicked again.
This time it opened.
Four men stepped in, they wheeled Ren out the back door.
No alarms triggered.
No cameras blinked.
No evidence left behind.
The next morning.
Aika hadn't yet read the final file sent by Ren 2 days ago.
She was still reviewing the last confirmed set of data Ren had sent her the day before. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned a particular line item—an inconsistency in audit tags that didn't match previous patterns.
She frowned.
There was something… off.
She reached for her tablet, marked the anomaly, and pulled up the confidential interface to request clarification.
Ren hadn't responded.
Odd.
He was fastidious about keeping their channel clear and updated—especially when it came to security flags. She figured he might've stepped out briefly, so she rose, tucking her folder under one arm.
I'll just go ask him. Five minutes. Then I can confirm this pattern myself.
She took the elevator two floors down to the IT department, heels soft on the polished floors. The hum of activity was lower at this hour, but a few engineers still milled about.
She walked straight to Ren's desk.
Empty.
His terminal was still active—screen dimmed but not locked. His tea mug was still there, half-full but cold. A folded paper towel rested neatly beside it. Nothing unusual at first glance… and yet…
She turned to the nearest desk.
"Hey, have you seen Ren?"
The colleague looked up from his monitor, surprised. "Ren? He should be here. He hasn't called in sick or anything."
She tilted her head. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "He usually pings our team Slack if he's running late, but there's been nothing."
"Can you try calling him?"
The engineer grabbed his phone and dialled. Aika watched, arms crossed, pulse tightening.
"Straight to voicemail," he said, hanging up. "Weird."
She turned back to the desk. Her gaze swept across the surface again. She leaned down slightly—her instincts stirring.
His stylus was out.
Terminal active.
No sign of abrupt departure.
He always tidied his desk before leaving but today, there's still a mug half-empty.
He'd been here recently.
But he was gone.
Something twisted in her stomach.
She didn't say anything—not yet.
Instead, she thanked the engineer and walked back toward the elevator, her hand clenching the folder tighter.
She went to check the server room, scanning every part of it and notice something. She ignores it for now because finding Ren is her priority right now.
She hadn't read the latest documents.
She would now. It might provide her the clue on Ren's disappearance.
Because something was wrong.
And the silence around Ren's absence… felt too loud to ignore.
Aika opens the confidential file Ren had sent—her breath catches. But it's already too late. He's gone.