Dante had seen a lot of ugly things in his life. Bar fights that ended with broken teeth on bloodstained floors. Junkies nodding off mid-sentence, lost in a high they wouldn’t wake up from. The slow, suffocating kind of debt that hollowed people out, eating them from the inside until there was nothing left but regret and missed payments.

But this?

This was worse.

The Undermarket went silent—not the kind of silence that came with fear, but the kind that came with certainty. A stillness that settled over the crowd, not out of shock, but out of routine. This was expected. This had happened before. And it would happen again.

A man—no, what was left of one—staggered forward. His suit had once been expensive, tailored, the kind of thing that spoke of wealth, power, control. But now it was ruined, wrinkled and stained, clinging to a body that no longer fit inside it. Sweat drenched his collar, and his hands—God, his hands—shook as they clutched a crumpled contract, the paper crushed and creased from desperation. His eyes darted wildly, pupils blown wide, the erratic movements of a cornered animal looking for a way out when there wasn’t one.

The Collector before him did not speak. Did not move. Did not need to. It simply waited. The inevitability of a ticking clock, a ledger reaching zero, a final page turning.

The crowd didn’t jeer. Didn’t whisper. Didn’t so much as shift. No one stepped forward to help, no one averted their gaze in pity or disgust. Because this wasn’t a spectacle. It wasn’t entertainment. It was procedure. A fact of life in a place where debts weren’t just owed but enforced.

The man’s breathing hitched, his grip on the contract tightening like it could somehow save him. His knuckles whitened, his whole body trembling—not just from fear, but from something worse. Something internal. His shoulders twitched like invisible strings had been threaded through his spine, pulling taut. The paper in his hands was changing, the ink shifting, moving, sinking into him.

Dante saw it before the man did. The dark tendrils creeping up his wrists, disappearing beneath his sleeves, slithering across his skin like a signature being rewritten in flesh. The contract was no longer just a piece of parchment. It was a sentence. And it was about to be carried out.

“I just need time,” the man gasped, voice cracking under the weight of words he already knew were useless. “I-I can get the payment—please, just a few more days—”

The contract burned.

Not with fire. Not with light. But with something worse—absence. A consuming void that spread from the ink, seeping into his fingers, crawling under his skin like something hungry. He twitched, his breath catching, his back arching slightly as if something had just reached inside him and pulled.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Then he went still.

For a fraction of a second—so brief Dante almost doubted he saw it—the man’s shadow lagged behind. Not in the way shadows should, not cast by flickering lanterns or uneven light, but as if something had been peeled away. Like whatever had once been him was now standing just outside reality, trying and failing to reattach itself.

Then the delay caught up. The shadow snapped back into place, seamless, whole—empty. The man’s frame held steady, but something in the air shifted, that imperceptible weight of presence vanishing. No breath. No thought. Just a shell, standing because no one had told it to fall.

And then the Collector reached out, and with one single touch, dust took him.

His eyes turned glassy. His mouth sagged open, lips shaping a word that never came. His body remained upright, rigid, but it was clear—nothing was inside it anymore.

Dante took a step back, a cold shudder crawling up his spine. What the hell—

The Collector moved with calm, mechanical precision, lifting one gloved hand and placing it against the man’s forehead. A single push. No force, no effort.

The husk of a man collapsed into dust.

No scream. No final plea. Just ash, drifting to the floor in a silent collapse of everything he had been. The parchment in his hands fluttered to the ground, blank, its ink erased. The debt, the man, his existence—collected.

The dust settled in uneven patches, fine as soot, clinging to the cracks in the stone floor. No wind stirred it. No one stepped forward to brush it away. It would linger, like all the others before it, until time or disinterest finally swept it aside. A reminder, however fleeting, that someone had once been here.

The Collector reached down, plucking the blank parchment from the ground with the same care one might handle an old receipt—worthless now, its transaction complete. With a precise flick of his wrist, the paper vanished, dissolving into the air as if it had never existed. No evidence. No record. Just absence.

And still, the market did not move. No one whispered. No one mourned. The unspoken law of this place remained unchanged: pay your debts, or become one.

A slow, collective breath rippled through the market. Not horror. Not disbelief. Just acknowledgment.

This wasn’t a tragedy. This wasn’t an exception.

This was just business.

Dante’s skin went cold. His pulse pounded against his ribs, his right hand twitching as the familiar burn of his own contract flared beneath his skin. His gaze flicked back to the Broker, who was already watching him with that same patient, knowing amusement.

“Still think you can afford to pay?” the Broker asked, tilting his head ever so slightly, like a man already calculating how much time Dante had left before he joined the dust.

For the first time since stepping into the Undermarket, Dante felt the weight of his own contract like a noose around his throat. It wasn’t just ink on paper. It wasn’t just a deal. It was a clock, ticking down with every breath he took, and the number on that countdown? He had no idea.

His fingers twitched, the burn of the Ashen Hand pulsing beneath his skin—a reminder, a brand, a warning. He wasn’t just in debt. He was owned. And standing here, watching the last traces of that poor bastard scatter into nothing, Dante realized something far worse than his own ignorance.

He wasn’t afraid of dying. No, that would be too easy. He was afraid that when his time came, when the contract came due, he wouldn’t die at all.

Dante swallowed hard.