𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒐𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆

PART-67

Inside Imagination, the air felt stale - burnt coffee, overheated CPUs, and the quiet panic of deadlines bleeding into one another.

Monitors glowed relentlessly. Timelines stretched open, layers stacked upon layers, graphs twitching with every accidental click. Chairs were pulled too close to desks; backs rigid, shoulders locked, as if one wrong movement might summon disaster.

Keyboards clattered in uneven bursts, breaking and reforming the silence like nervous breaths. Someone's stylus slipped from trembling fingers and clattered onto a desk, the sound sharp enough to make three heads snap up before they remembered where they were and quickly looked back down.

At the far end, a girl sagged back in her chair, eyes burning red as she stared at her screen. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, then fell uselessly into her lap.

"I messed it up again," she whispered, her voice cracking as she tipped her head back against the headrest, staring at the ceiling as if it might offer mercy.

The boy beside her stiffened instantly. His chair creaked as he leaned closer, his gaze darting to her monitor. "What happened?" he murmured.

She swallowed and straightened slightly, dragging herself forward. "The rig broke when I re-exported the mesh," she almost cried. "The elbow joints are collapsing during the idle animation. I tried fixing the weight painting, but now the skeleton hierarchy is glitching."

He sucked in a breath through his teeth, fingers unconsciously curling. "Did you touch the root bone?"

"I had to," she whispered. "The Inverse Kinematics constraints weren't responding. And now the walk cycle is jittering - fame drops, mesh clipping, everything."

His jaw tightened at the red warning blinking on her screen: BUILD FAILED.

"Undo?" he asked.

"I can't." She shook her head, eyes glassy. "Auto-save kicked in after the bake. If this goes into today's build-"

Around them, someone coughed and immediately apologized. Another employee minimized their screen. For a moment, footsteps echoed from the corridor, only for everyone to relax when they realized it was just the intern running to the printer.

The boy lowered his voice to a breath. "Karan asked for a clean animation pass before lunch," he said. "No glitches. No excuses."

Her fingers dug into the armrest. "He'll rip the entire asset apart," she sniffled. "He'll say the poly count is sloppy. That the normal maps aren't optimized. That we don't understand the engine."

The boy reached for his mouse anyway. "Let me check the keyframes," he said softly. "We'll rebuild the rig if we have to. Just don't panic."

She let out a shaky breath and nodded-
-and then the sound of firm footsteps dropped into the silence, and it felt as if her heart stopped beating.

Someone halfway through a sip of cold coffee froze, the cup hovering just short of their lips, breath caught somewhere in their chest.

Slowly, one by one, chairs creaked as people turned.

He stood just inside the doorway, framed by the long spill of white corridor light, shadows gathering at his feet.

A man in black.

Confident. Grounded. Devastatingly handsome without effort. Health written into him. Clear skin. A posture that never wavered. Strength carried like second nature. Muscles shaped by discipline, not display. Nothing excessive. Nothing uncertain.

Beside him stood a bodybuilder of a man - black suit, broader shoulders, heavier presence - quietly alert, like a wall that had learned how to breathe.

And as if the floor itself had forgotten its purpose, no one moved.