Kane sat at his desk, submerged in the pale, artificial glow of fluorescent lights. In his office, day and night were indistinguishable.  Everything was a muted shade of grey, drained of vibrancy.

He stared at his screen, his eyes scanning the charts and figures in front of him, though their meaning had long escaped him. The words blurred together, faintly whispering some possibilities, but Kane never cared to untangle it. He ended his task, as always, with a capital “K”.

Kane was "K." The “-ane,” as his colleagues and bosses liked to remind him, was unnecessary. K was enough.

His mornings began with the hum of the elevator, a brief and inconsequential exchange of greetings with colleagues, and then back to his desk—filling out forms, sending emails about things he didn’t fully comprehend, attending meetings with clients whose concerns never seemed to matter.

His clients greeted him with polite indifference, exchanged shallow pleasantries, and handed him briefs written in language that might as well have been foreign. They wanted something, though K was never sure what it was. They met not out of need but out of obligation, a ritual neither party comprehended nor questioned.

Afterward, K would dutifully shake hands, type a few routine, similar words into his documents, and pack his bag. Then he would board the same underground train, traveling back to his equally unremarkable apartment.

The train was a river of anonymity, ebbing and surging with a tide of interchangeable passengers—heads bowed, faces paled by the faint glow of their phones. The train twisted and wobbled through the tunnels, and its passengers swayed as one, movements dictated by the train’s rhythm. The train cared nothing for those it carried, and K cared nothing for the train.

It took him downward, always downward, toward the same destination as the rest, before finally spitting him out at the end of the line. There, in the hollow quiet of his squalid apartment, the day faded, indistinguishable from the one before it, or the one that would come tomorrow.

—-----------------

It was 7 p.m., and the station was growing busier. The gloomy faces of workers, their eyes glazed over, moved mechanically through the crowd. Each person was cocooned in their own little world—headphones firmly in place, eyes fixed on the glowing screens of their phones. They wore similar, yet slightly distinct outfits, all carrying the same kind of bag with minor variations.

The crowd surged forward, a slow, pressing tide, pushing each other into the elevator line, inch by inch. One by one, they descended.

K found himself awkwardly squeezed between two passengers with suitcases, their sharp edges poking into him. He glanced at the posters sideways for some distraction.

Another new adaptation for a play that had been adapted countless times before. 

Another poster announcing a new play exactly resembles the new adaptation of the play that has been adapted countless times before.

Then a new slimming pill, a new investment opportunity, a new place to travel. 

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Suddenly his eyes fell on a bold, bleak note written in contrasting black and red with a clear white background. It reads : "If you harass or verbally abuse our staff, we will pursue legal action." It went on to describe a young man who had gotten into an argument with the ticket clerk and was promptly sent to prison for weeks.

K let out a small laugh at himself. He couldn’t move. Any shift in position might throw him off balance. He imagined himself rolling down into the abyss that seemed to stretch out ahead of him, tumbling into the void where all the other faces floated, just like his.

They swam together, this sea of people, each heading toward the same destination, parted in two opposition directions, bound by an invisible current. Waiting. Always waiting.

—-----------

K was squashed, smashed, barely sardined into the space.  His body twisted uncomfortably, his chest pressed tightly against another’s back, while something hard dug into him from behind.

At the first stop, K barely managed to breathe before being assaulted by the heavier exhalations of those standing close to him. By the second stop, exhaustion crept in.

Then, suddenly, a mass exodus: passengers surged and shoved their way out, their rush dictated by the stop’s promise of connection to more trains, more stops, more waiting.

In the sudden stillness, an empty chair presented itself. K moved towards it.

He sat down without hesitation, his body moving voluntarily . The doors slid shut with a hollow thud. The train jerked forward, quieter now, though the air still felt stagnant.

Around him, passengers were absorbed by their phones, their faces illuminated in soft, detached glows. Some wore oversized headphones, others smaller, snug buds, their heads slightly bobbing to unheard rhythms. Occasionally, a rare figure clutched a newspaper, their focus singularly fixed on the Sudoku—always Sudoku.

K felt the familiar tide of fatigue washing over him, it greeted him daily without fail. He stared emptily at the space ahead, his mind as blank as the advertisement board that hadn’t yet been replaced.

The doors opened again, and a fresh swarm of people flooded in. They wore variations of the same uniform—coats, scarves, and bags, all shades eventually blended into a corporate grey. They carried the same air of indifference, their eyes glinting with a cold, hollow efficiency. They piled in, pressing into one another until the train was flattened with bodies once more.

No one spoke. The doors shut again with a sterile hiss.

—-------------------

K had not noticed the man standing before him. Perhaps the man had not noticed him either, but in the stifling silence of the underground train, something shifted. The man, sensing perhaps the emptiness lingering in the air between them, held his gaze for a moment too long. K, caught in the stare, remained inert. His body was present, but his mind had long since drifted elsewhere.

The man was unremarkable, much like K—average height, average face, slightly balding, his gray coat rumpled from the press of the crowd. He stared at his phone with an intensity that suggested importance, though none existed.

A sudden rustling broke the monotony. There were murmurs, disgruntled noises rippling through the passengers like a slow wave. The sound grew louder, closer. People shifted, stepping back, parting like the arms of coral.

There was a man in a black mask, wearing a well-weathered jacket, he was hooded too. He carried a black bag.

Then, the first shot echoed. The grey-coated man collapsed instantly, crumpling to the floor. Then another shot.

K’s body remained motionless.  He remained still, his gaze fixed on the door ahead as though it had not happened.

Yet the air in the train grew thick with something unnameable. The other passengers seemed to notice, but no one moved. No one reacted.

At the next stop, the masked man stepped off the train calmly. The doors shut behind him, sealing the carriage in silence once more.