Facing the bathroom mirror, Arno felt lucky that no one else was in the bathroom. He looked awful. And smelled even worse. He felt sick in his stomach, and a little woozy. After all of this was over, he would have to go to the doctors for a checkup.

He tried his best to clean himself off in the sink, dunking his head under the tap and turning it into a makeshift shower. He ran his hands under the automatic soap dispenser several times, then lathered up everything from his face and hair to the collar of his shirt.

He stood there for ten minutes, scrubbing away and making sure he was as clean as he could get. Looking at himself in the mirror, he regretted that he didn’t have a change of clothes with him. Even though he had scrubbed away at the vomit stains as best he could, it was still noticeable.

He could only hope he didn’t have to get too close to people.

Reluctantly, Arno began his journey back to his office.

He felt like everyone was staring at him. He flinched at every murmur and sound of conversation, convinced that they were talking about him. He hurried back into his office, not wanting to spend another second out there.

Slamming the door shut, he sunk into his chair so far that he couldn’t be seen from the outside. He just wanted to hide from everyone. My life is over. I’ll never recover from this.

He could excuse bringing coffee to everyone. That was something he had done before, and could just be seen as him being nice. If anything, it could be construed as a good thing for his reputation considering how it went.

But this was anything but good. He vomited on himself in front of so many people. There was no doubt in his mind that this would soon be spread throughout the rest of the company, and he would become a laughingstock. His reputation was in tatters.

While he was trapped in his own thoughts, another email arrived in his inbox, this one titled ‘CONGRATULATIONS’.

He grimaced, but opened up the email.

“Congratulations for completing your second task, you are almost half way there. That was an enjoyable sight to see. Are you ready for your next task?”

Arno was shaking as he read this. The entire thing read like the most vicious taunting imaginable. He was being thoroughly humiliated. He felt like crying, but bit back the tears and started typing a response.

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

But just before he sent it out, something clicked in his mind, and he finally realised where he had seen the email address before. It was someone in the office, but because they didn’t report directly to him, but instead to a team leader, he didn’t receive emails from them often..

Small dredges of information started to piece themselves together, until he could finally put a face to the name in the email.

He bolted out of his chair and stared at the person while they worked. She didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious, but Arno was certain they were the one threatening him. He was prepared to march out there and confront her when he felt like he had a bucket of ice cold water dumped on him.

How could I confront her? Could I just ask her why she was blackmailing me? Then my crimes would be known to everyone in the office. I’d be done for sure. I wouldn’t be able to escape being sent to prison.

He started to calm down, these thoughts washed away his hot-headedness. He had stopped himself from making a grave mistake.

Looking at her, he still felt the urge to go out there and confront her. He had been thoroughly humiliated, and didn’t want to let it slide now that he knew who was the person behind it.

With a calm face, he walked out of his office with a confident demeanour. Which was immediately shattered the second he stepped outside.

Again, he felt like everyone was watching him and laughing at him. He crumpled. He felt so small. His face went beet-red as he thought about just going back into his office. But he pushed himself forward and managed to make it to the woman’s desk.

“Do you need something from me boss?” she asked with a hint of confusion. She looked up at him with what Arno could have sworn was ridicule and contempt.

“I need to check your emails Linda,” Arno said with a bit of venom and anger that he didn’t even realise.

“O-okay.” She flinched back at his words, scared. She gave him access to his computer and watched on as he scrolled through every page of emails, feeling increasingly nervous. Seeing that he was getting more and more frustrated, she was feeling scared.

“WHY? Why isn’t it here?” he asked angrily, and a bit louder than he should have. Now a few people were looking at him.

He had confirmed that it was the correct email address, but he couldn’t find a single email sent from her to him in the past several weeks, let alone multiple today. His head snapped back to face her in anger, convinced she had pulled something.

She jumped back, afraid that he was going to do something to her. He looked like a predator that was about to rip her throat out. “What did I do wrong?” She bowed down, her face pale as she tried to appease him.

He looked around, realising that too many people were watching him now. Frustrated and feeling like he had been tricked, he returned to his office and slammed the door shut without saying another word.

Linda slumped down in her chair, crying, and several other people came up to comfort her, all the while staring daggers into Arno’s back.

Arno sat back down, feeling exhausted, and sent the email he had written previously. He stared at Linda, waiting to see her send another email to confirm it was her.

But she didn’t even move. She just stayed there crying.