Abhi looked mostly perplexed in this ordeal, awkwardly laughing along with the other employees. However, looking deep into his eyes revealed hints of two emotions beginning to boil—rage and fear.

The supervisor continued the conversation, "Ha! So, what was your story again? You live with your mother, right? No father to speak of?"

Abhi paused for a few seconds before bluntly answering, "Yes."

"And you got into a prestigious High City school, which is why you had to adjust your schedule?" the supervisor said in a condescending tone.

"Yes," Abhi repeated.

"So you have no 'man of the house,' no time for another job, and no time to look for a new one, right?"

Abhi chose not to respond, prompting the supervisor to persist with the same condescending tone. He continued while maintaining the position of his hand on his crotch.

"To top it all off, you have a poor, lonely yet young and beautiful mother with no man of her own. She’s so desperate for money that she would do anything... anything to fund her son's high-cost city education, right?"

Unable to control the rage in his eyes, Abhi looked down, gritting his teeth until his jaw hurt. His eyes were slightly blurry from the surge of emotions, and his veins felt like they were boiling. He curled his fists but remained frozen in place, shivering without taking a step forward.

The supervisor was completely unaffected by the change in Abhi's behaviour and continued speaking as he walked away in a particular direction.

"You walk on the edge of the abyss, and yet, dare not to watch your step? Or perhaps you've already fallen? Ha! I hope not," the supervisor said, taking slow yet powerful strides towards the other end of the room.

Abhi looked up, rage burning in his eyes, but all he could see was the supervisor's back as he walked away. He had the will to move forward, but he didn’t take a step. He stood there, burning in the flames of his own wrath.

Finally, the supervisor stopped and turned back to face Abhi. Right behind him was a wall with a clock on it. He looked at Abhi and said, "How could a man like you, whose entire livelihood depends on this job, be five full minutes late to work?"

Abhi desperately tried to calm himself and stuttered, "Sorry, sir. There were certain events at the school that caused the delay—"

Before he could finish, the supervisor interrupted him.

"Were you late because of work-related issues? Did someone close to you die? Or are you dead?" he asked bluntly, glancing sideways from Abhi.

Abhi remained silent, so the supervisor continued.

"If none of these three things happened, then there is no valid reason for you to be late, in the eyes of the company. Unfortunately, this means we will have to deduct your full week's pay from this month's payout." The supervisor spoke as if he were looking far into the distance, not even addressing Abhi directly.

While Abhi’s rage remained, his mind overflowed with fear and anxiety. He was sweating despite having stopped running; his breathing was heavy.

In desperation, he closed his eyes and replied with a broken voice, "Please… please, sir. I promise I won’t make such a mistake again, and... and it was just—"

Before he could finish, the supervisor, Mr Anand Dohcradam, abruptly turned to look straight at Abhi, in his eyes was... blood.

"... and it was just five minutes," Abhi said while stuttering, suddenly all his pleas stopped.

…

Abhi suddenly felt his jaw getting crudely gripped with extreme force. He did not realize what was happening at all, because he had closed his eyes to hide the strong surge of emotions inside of him....

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When he opened his eyes, he saw something that resembled a... Monster.

SLAM! Grabbed by the face Abhi's head was slammed on the wall beside him. He had absolutely no time to react, and the impact instantly made him dizzy, giving him a minor concussion.

Before the stunned Abhi could realize what was happening, he had dropped down to the floor, his head only held up by the attacker pressing it against the wall.

Soon, the hand holding his head up turned into a fist, its knuckles digging into Abhi's temples against the wall.

After the shock from the first attack was dimmed down in a few seconds, Abhi regained some amount of lucidity back, just enough to see who the attacker was and hear what he was saying.

"JUST? What the FUCK do you mean by "JUST 5 MINUTES"? This company's 5 minutes are worth more than the life of a gutter Fag*ot like you by a thousand times over.

"Do you genuinely don't understand how incredibly worthless you are? It would take 2 minutes, 2 fucking minutes to find another employee who works better than you and is ready to chop off his ball sack for this position." the mad perpetrator speaking these words was none other than the supervisor Anand Dohcradam himself, completely devoid of his previously calm demeanour.

Upon seeing this, Abhi felt like he was falling, falling an infinite distance through an eternally dark-blue abyss. The supervisor's words progressively became more distant and distorted. Abhi even stopped feeling the pain from his head being slammed and pressed against the wall. He felt like his life was just eternally falling, and a moment later, he was consumed by the darkness, completely detaching himself from the world...

///

Even the employees standing in line, watching this unfold, were shocked. They were familiar with the supervisor's ruthless practices; he often berated, cursed, and even slapped some of his subordinates. However, his actions today were far beyond anything they had seen or heard of.

When hiring new employees, beyond just the merit needed for a job. The superiors in companies of Low City often looked for particular exploitable traits. Traits that would give them power over the life of another human being. They wanted people who walked on the edge of the abyss just like Abhi.

They did not want people with particularly strong backgrounds who had the freedom to leave their jobs when needed or to fight back against any oppression they faced.

Neither did they want to hire the people who had already fallen into the darkness, living a life of crime and degeneracy, because these people had little to lose, their madness was an unpredictable variable. They could finally break and crash out at any moment, harming both the company and the employees. This is also the partial reason for the abundance of jobless youth in Low City, especially the West.

Henceforth, the best options were the employees whose lives were filled with struggle and suffering, yet they tried their best to stay on track. These people had a lot to lose, but they didn't have the power to protect what they valued.

Therefore, a company with a steady job provided a way for these individuals to protect what they cared for. However, at the same time, the trade-off was giving the company a certain amount of power over them.

Superiors, especially direct superiors of employees that could influence an employee's job position were the best at exploiting this power.

Every employee in the line of the company watching Abhi get beaten down was walking at the edge of the abyss in their own way, some were in desperate need of money for a loved one's medical treatment, some wanted a better life for their kids, and some were simply the only working members of their entire family. All of them worked hard and tolerated great torment to not slip into the murk of society.

All of them were walking on edges of different sizes, the thinner the edge the more power any supervisor could exploit. And for the case of Abhi, his edge was just a microscopic thread, on which Abhi was balancing his life. Making him the prime victim of any oppressor. This is why supervisor Adand willingly escalated the matter as far as he did.

If Abhi were to report this abuse to further ups in the company, it would just be Abhi's word against Supervisor Anand, The superior member of the company would almost always win in such an argument, but Supervisor Anand wasn't even afraid of bullying Abhi in front of many other employees either, because he knew Abhi was too weak, too powerless and too much of a coward to take any action against him.

Other employees who weren't as powerless as Abhi and had also hated supervisor Anand would've loved to see Anand get fired, but they didn't know Abhi at all so risking their jobs to help him wasn't something they could rationally choose to do.

Gathering the line of employees to complain against a supervisor still didn't confirm anyone getting justice either, and there was no way Abhi was going to gamble his living, his shelter and the safety and integrity of his mother on a chance that he gets his abusive superior fired. And when it comes to the police and lawsuits, they were nothing but a joke in all of Low City.

///

So just like that, Abhi was left alone, lying flat on the ground knocked out cold, with no one to check on him.

Supervisor Anand instructed his employees to return to work and act as if nothing had happened. Lacking any grounds to act against him, the employees felt obligated to submit to his authority.

Leaving Abhi alone with nothing but the rough texture of the factory room floor and the cold winds blowing in from the open door.

...….