“Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

The bleating noise of his alarm woke afresh the storm raging inside his skull. Without opening his eyes, Julian Beaumont found his blaring phone with his hand and snoozed the alarm, letting peaceful silence eclipse his bedroom once more. Only it didn’t stop the pulsing headache pounding behind his eyes.

“I’m never drinking again…” he mumbled, turning over and burying his face in the soft pillow, the words crawling out from his parched throat. So dry it felt as though he hadn’t had a drink for three days.

Julian couldn’t tell how long he’d managed to shut his eyes, or if he drifted off into a dreamless sleep once more, before the door to his room smashed open, heralding another storm. “Julian, get up,” Cassandra said, her snappy voice a noise even more annoying than his alarm. “You have work today.”

“Yeah…” he moaned. As if he could forget. “Just a few more minutes.”

Not even a moment passed before she ripped the duvet off him, exposing his bare body to the chilly breeze. “You’ll be late!” Cassandra snapped. “If it weren’t for your father and how much business he does with David, he’d have fired you months ago.”

“He’s welcome to fire me now.” Julian opened his eyes, and the blurry form of his wicked stepmother fast became sharp. Her wavey black hair falling past her shoulders, the beige gown she wore, and her two brown eyes alight with furious fire. “It’s a shit job anyway.”

“A ‘shit job’ is all you’re good for.” Her voice cracked like a whip, its lash leaving a wound that cut deeper than he’d care to let on. Julian wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Your brothers had all graduated from Oxford by now, and your sister is about to finish a PhD at Cambridge. And what are you doing? Living in my house, treating it as a bed and breakfast after your benders.”

Julian arched up, yawning, scratching his hair as though it would stop his terrible headache. “In normal bed and breakfasts the staff don’t moan at me, and the food they serve is edible.” He smirked at her.

She slapped him.

“Cheeky cunt,” she spat, turning around. “Get up and go to work. Why your father tolerates you, I have no idea.”

“Stupid bitch,” he muttered as he crawled out of bed. Approaching the window of his London penthouse, he wondered why his parents made him work such a menial job anyway. The Beaumont family already had money. Wasn’t that the point of working, to get money? If you already had mountains of gold, why keep working?

I thought rich people got rich to stop working, not continue it. The grey London skyline was something that always depressed Julian. A dim smog shadowed the many skyscrapers that littered the horizon. How it was possible for anyone to be happy here, he had no idea. So ugly and mundane, just like his existence.

My palace in the clouds… Clouds of exhaust fumes and pollution. The waste of an industrial hellscape built on sweat, tears, and depression. 

Oh, he had access to his toys and gadgets more than anyone else. He wasn’t ignorant, after all. But that was all on the condition he worked for it. Nothing was given for free in the Beaumont family. He liked his new phones, watches, gaming PCs, and gold jewellry as much as the next person, but the toys that gave him the most peace and pleasure were slightly more unconventional.

Scores of model tanks and airplanes, carefully painted over the course of many days, accompanied by model soldiers and stacks of history books. His most recent read sat open on his desk. A book about the battle of Agincourt. One he would be too tired to read after work, no doubt.

Such hobbies and interests he could not find in common with many others in London, who cared more for getting high every weekend or dining in restaurants they couldn’t afford so they could put it on Instagram.

Julian opened his wardrobe and got ready for work. A sleek white Armani shirt that he buttoned up, fitting tightly over his lean, wiry body. He slipped the charcoal grey Hugo Boss blazer over his shirt and put on his slim-fit Saint Laurent trousers. He finished his look up with a pair of crocodile skin Jimmy Choo shoes, gleaming black as though they wore a fresh coat of polish.

It made him feel no better on the inside, but he looked like a million dollars on the outside. His clothes were one of the few things that made him feel important. The armour of the 21st century—designer clothes. To strangers, he looked like an important businessman. They didn’t need to know he had little prospects, and only lived on the good graces of his wealthy family and the prestige of his family name.

Adding the finishing touches, he slipped on a golden signet ring engraved with the Eye of Horus, a Rolex, and wrapped himself up in his vintage suede fur-lined coat. 

Avoiding the kitchen, where Cassandra sat, Julian rushed out of the penthouse and headed for the elevator. As it slowly descended toward the bottom of the building (they lived on the top penthouse, because it had two floors), Julian stared into his vague grey reflection in the cold steel of the elevator. A shadowy caricature of his face, yet he could see the deep bags under his tired eyes. His casually dishevelled wavey brown hair falling just past his ears, and an expression on his face that told of dread and misery. He really couldn’t be bothered to go to the office today, as he couldn’t yesterday, and the day before that.

The many faces on the underground tube that headed toward the City told the same story. Rows of nameless faces hanging down, staring into the mindless rot their phone screens projected to them, talking to no one around them.

A banner above the seats read: WORK HARD, DREAM BIG, showing a man with the biggest smile on his face sitting at a computer, hunched over all day.

The slightest smirk tugged at the corner of his lip. Keep dreaming, keep working, and keep making us rich, is what the poster really said. Julian knew that all too well. He had seen real wealth, he knew how much of it there was, and he knew how little of it really trickled down to the proles.

After his commute passed by in a blur, he found himself walking through the clear doors of his office building. A glass skyscraper belonging to Sterling & Crowe Partners, a large investment bank with which his father did a lot of business for his estates, and the only reason he had a job there.

Julian drank his morning coffee and had a ham and cheese sandwich for his breakfast before getting the elevator up to his floor, where rows of grey cubicles awaited him. The endless click-clacking of fingers tapping keyboards was akin to a fly buzzing in his ear. No matter how many times he tried to shut the noise out or swat it away, it would inevitably come back. The endless numbers in the rows of the digital spreadsheet chiselled themselves into his brain, only making his migraine worse.

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Not even an hour into his shift, he was already fed up. Mindlessly dashing numbers into the computer, making sure there were no mistakes, that every name was spelled correctly, lest he get a verbal lashing from his manager. An old woman with a nose like a vulture’s beak endlessly snooping through the cubicles, making sure each corporate cog performed like a well oiled machine.

Julian sometimes wondered, randomly, what the great men of history would have done in today's world. What would Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar do if they were born in modern day England, where the days of conquering on horseback were long over? Would they too be stuck in these cubicles, wondering what the point of it all was? Would they just be another face riding a train, forgotten to the pages of history, voicing their views on an edgy internet forum instead of the great Forum of Rome?

When he closed his eyes, trying to be free from the mundane noise for just a moment, giving his eyes a rest from the relentless blue light of the computer, he only heard the disappointed voices of his family. You shouldn’t have dropped out of Oxford. You should have worked harder. Claire’s son is an investment banker. What are you? And then the silence became more irritating than the noise of the office. Lazy! You’ll never make anything of yourself by getting drunk every night!

But getting drunk was the only way to cope.

His father had hoped that Julian would follow in his footsteps, becoming a shrewd businessman in helping to manage his estates in the countryside as well as his lucrative property portfolio of commercial buildings in London and abroad. His mother, his true mother, a sweet woman who now only existed in his fond, distant memories, must have hoped he’d marry a nice girl and give her plenty of grandchildren after building his own property empire. But Julian had failed them all. Such things gave him no pleasure, no joy, no meaning. It was all a great game, and everyone who played it forever ran on their little hamster wheels, trying to be better than those around them, flaunting their wealth and achievements like peacocks, forever showing off to people they did not care about.

He always had the feeling he never fit in around here. He could never wrap his head around how people just tolerated this life. Working, eating, sleeping, and getting up the next day to do it all again.

His daily train of horrible thoughts was broken when Lucy Harrington walked by the cubicle. The one person that made these boring days slightly tolerable. His team leader, with fiery orange hair held back by a white headband, a pretty face peppered with freckles, and a smile that could light up a room. Her curvy figure looked as though it had been carved by angels, the way her knee-length skirt wrapped around her waist and legs, how the emerald in her necklace matched her lush green eyes.

Julian often fantasized about dating her and had been working at it since he’d started working here. They were friendly by now, and when she walked past his cubicle, flashing that cute smile with a hearty, “Morning, Julian. How are you?” He decided that today of all days was finally the day he’d ask her out.

He’d never gotten more than friendly chatter out of her, but she was a busy woman, after all, and a couple years his senior too. She’d risen high here for a 24 year old.

On his morning break, he’d make his move in the break room. In his mind, it always played out the same. He’d tread through the swamp of formal workplace banter, making her laugh with his wit and charm. He’d comment on how gorgeous her eyes were, and the walls she used to protect herself would melt in his presence. Their date would be amazing, holding hands as they walked along a picturesque stone bridge, below which a lush stream flowed by, drifting off into an enchanted wonderland. They’d have a house together, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after.

Yet, when he popped the question in the break room, her professional demeanour did not crack. She instead let out a surprised gasp, as though he’d caught her off guard. Julian couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or bad, and then Lucy said, with an awkward look on her face, “Sorry, Julian. I don’t date my colleagues.”

“Oh.” It was a stab in the gut. He scratched his head, making sure to show off his Rolex, his gaze lingering on the floor. “Why not? I mean—”

She held her hand up to shush him. “Don’t shit where you eat, Julian. I should get back to work.” Lucy left him with a friendly smile. 

I was never good enough… he thought as he watched Lucy walk back into the office, as he watched her laugh and joke with another colleague. Another man. He turned away with a heavy sigh before the jealousy overcame him. 

Should have studied…

Should have worked harder…

Should have dreamt bigger….

But how can one work hard when one dreams of nothing? How can one work hard when he dreams of not working all day? 

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Those were Julian Beaumont’s last thoughts as he walked out of the office on his break, never to return. For once, he did not care about the consequences, the fallout, or the lashing he’d get from his parents.

And he’d never felt more alive.

He lit up the most liberating cigarette of his life, had a few drinks at a posh cocktail bar not far from his office. He had to enjoy this now, he knew, because the storm it would bring would be his undoing.

Julian stayed out drinking for most of the day, not quite having the courage to go home and break the news of his unemployment just yet.

As he stumbled out of the cocktail bar and walked past his office building, the sky had become dim. He noticed groups of passers-by gazing up at the sky. “Oh my god, an eclipse!”

Julian looked up, and sure enough, saw the moon, black and dark, slowly drifting in front of the sun. There was a majesty to it he had never witnessed before, and found his gaze fixated on it as the moon all but blocked the sun out, casting a dim shroud over the whole city. 

As the dark shroud fell upon his world, Julian fell into a state of hypnosis, his gaze transfixed on the celestial event taking place above him. The black orb rimmed with the last vestiges of sunlight just working past its edges. Like a great black eye staring back at him. 

“Where have you been all day!” he heard a woman yell. Was she grabbing onto him? Was someone tugging at his blazer? Was it Lucy? “Those accounts aren’t going to resolve themselves, you know? You just made the team fail its daily target! Julian, are you even listening to me?” 

The minutes turned to hours, and a strange clarity washed over Julian’s mind. Something akin to being on the verge of passing out. A spinning sensation when one has too much to drink and doesn’t know when to stop.

“Don’t stare at it!” the woman with Lucy’s voice screamed. Though she seemed but a silhouette in the darkness.

The voices became dim around him. The sky was not getting brighter, and the black orb covering the sun seemed to expand, blotting out all light in the sky as though the Earth had become shrouded in the dark void. Someone tugged at his coat.

Julian did not know when it happened, but he noticed there was no one around him now. No buildings, no roads, no pavements, no London.

No people.

“Hello?” he tried to say, but there was only silence. He tried running, but his feet were glued to the floor as though stuck in quicksand. Suddenly his heart pounded like a drum. His head span so fast he began to lose track of all his senses except for the sickening sensation that he was falling at the speed of light.

“Sleep now, child,” a voice whispered in his mind. “You shall wake on the other side.”