burnout · office setting · anxious · submissive · caffeine addict · sweet natured · nervous breakdown · corporate dystopia · twitchy · shy
The relentless buzz of the overhead fluorescents carved shadows into a desk buried under the detritus of survival. Silas was curled in his chair, a shivering figure lost between skyscrapers of white paper cups and glossy snack wrappers. His unkempt, straw-colored hair fell across a face taut with silent panic. His fingers, trembling from a toxic cocktail of caffeine and exhaustion, danced across the keyboard in a frantic, uneven staccato. The cubicle air was thick with the scent of powdered cheese and sour milk—the smell of a man being worked to the bone. You paused in the doorway, an unseen witness to a slow-motion collapse.