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Cold Comfort

A thin fog lay over the city, giving the buildings the look of odd creatures, crouching in wait to swallow the citizens on the streets bellow whole. The sun's weak rays barely reached through the stifling mist and smog, the punishment a city gets for being moist and industrial. Autumn had cast its cold hand upon the barren concrete and withering plant life of the sprawling  bastion of industry, stripping what little green shone through the grey cloud of all and any color.

Yellow taxi cabs and blue city buses prowled the streets, their headlights like lamps drawing the passengers to them as moths seek flame.  Other vehicles mingled alongside the peeling paint of public transportation, the morning commute was in full swing. The streets flowed like rivers, the hundreds of workers riding the roads on their way to another day of drudgery and drab dissatisfaction. The buildings glowered down at the streets, their lights baleful as they waited to feast upon the labor of  the desperate and destitute. A man stumbled out of a yellow and rusting taxi cab, just one of the greater flood. He tripped on the curb as the car sped away, smashing his knee into the hard concrete and tinting the khaki of his dress pants a muddied red. He cursed sharply, but quickly gathered his fallen briefcase, dusted off his now less than perfect outfit, and was on his way up the stair of his workplace.

The building had a strange air, near the base it sported an older, more elegant construction of intricate carvings and statues, but as one looked up its impressive heights the molded stone gave way to the more modern construction of hard angled glass and steel. The stairs themselves held an imposing air, contrary to the elegance of the statues and artworks found surrounding the raised terrace on which the entire structure appeared to have its balance. The man pulled tighter his large blue coat, pulled his hat down upon his head, and took the stairs one massive step at a time. His gait and stride matched almost perfectly with the other workers climbing beside, behind, and ahead of him, their walk one of a people exhausted, tired, and beaten. He finished the climb up the large staircase, breathing heavily and briefly leaning against the metal railing to regain his composure. Then, taking a moment to stretch his worried joints, he lurched towards the buildings entrance, a set of thoroughly modern automatic doors, seemingly at war with the carved stone in which they were set.

Above the entrance a bold sign announced the owners of the establishment, the Greenleaf Corporation. The Greenleaf Corporation ran a fairly basic enterprise: the production, marketing, advertisement, and distribution of their brand name Greenleaf Tea, along with a slew of other soft drinks. The sign bore the company name, written in cursive font above the grinning face of the company mascot, the knight Sir Greenleaf himself. The man paid this sign no heed, he had seen in every day since he had been hired to market for the company. A slight breeze blew the man's unbuttoned jacket open, revealing the small plastic square of his nametag. The small, yet bold, letters spelt his name: Kory G. Rothchild. Kory quickly pulled shut his coat and entered the brightly lit lobby of the tower.

The lobby blazed with light, the ceiling mounted fluorescents driving back the gloom of the outside without any heat the sun could have provided. It was strangely cramped for an antechamber, the few windows like squinting eyes, the various columns doing nothing to add to the sparse grandeur of the room. The walls were the same dull tan as the carved concrete and stone outside, yet lacking any decorations other than the scattered presence of motivational and informational company posters. People surged through the space, forming small lines up to the three check-in desks before rushing to one of the two elevators, or opting to try their luck on the staircase. Kory joined the leftmost queue. Before long, it was his turn. He wordlessly presented card to the secretary, a tired looking man by the name of Ryan. The secretary scanned him in, and moved on to the next employee without a word. After a series of unfortunate dates with those Ryan fancied, he and Kory weren't exactly on the best of terms. Kory rushed the opening elevator, just barely securing an open spot on the lift. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad to not need to face the momentous walk from the building's bottom to his seventh story office. 

A portly man in a black suit, standing in front of Kory, promptly turned around with alarming speed. With the simultaneous air of a drowned man surfacing for air and an expression of sudden realization and remembrance. "Ah! Kory! Didn't see you there, no sir! I've meant to find you, corporate wants you in the advertising meeting at 12:00. Oh! And Neilson wants that magazine add done and dropped in her office before you pack up. Sorry, sorry! I know it's not what you wanted to hear, but someone's gotta do it. And who knows? Maybe you'll get a raise, eh?"  He breathed out in a  massive string of words, a torrent of information to the overwhelmed Kory. Kory sighed deeply, he hadn't been expecting a relaxing day, but this was still not what he had wanted to hear. "Yes, yes, I'll get it done. No worries." The suited man nodded appreciatively, just as the elevator dinged open on the third floor and he lurched forwards, out to earn his pay. Kory was quiet the rest of the ride, head filled with idle daydreams. The sharp ding of the lift finishing its journey to the seventh floor jerked him abruptly free of his thoughts, and driving him to move swiftly to his light grey cubicle. He noted the time -- 8:00 -- and set himself to work, styling the magazine add on his computer and conferring with coworkers on things ranging from the pose of the digital Sir Greenleaf to the size of the font. Lost in the work, the hours drifted by. The twelve o'clock meeting came and went, and it was back to a slew of edits to the work of others. The official workday came to an end and Kory was faced with his daily decision: Stay and work overtime or simply head back to the comforts of shared his apartment?

Today, he chose the latter. His things were gathered, computer shut down, and he began the taxi ride home. The apartment complex was nothing notable, the same concrete and steel rectangle as the ones pushing up beside it, forming dirty alleys between themselves. Kory repeated his daily ritual, up the stairs, down the wood-floored hallway, to his apartment. Apartment 173a. He inserted his jagged key in to the small hole and opened the door with a satisfying clunk. The first thing he noted was the lack of light in the main room. Odd. Amanda -- his roommate and close friend since their first days of college -- usually returned home first, it was uncommon that he would be the first to come back. No matter. He flipped on the light revealing a scene that seemed surreal, one that belonged far more on the cynical pictures of the nightly news, or a crime drama than situated in the space of his apartment. The sofa was overturned, the dining table smashed to matchsticks, and the television toppled. The hardwood of the floor was scuffed and stained with blood. A chill ran through his body. What in the Abyss was going on here? He moved slowly, like a specter in a dream, towards the site of struggle. The blood stained in long streaks, bloody hand prints dragged towards the door, fingers pointed to the small oaken desk at the far end of the main room, in front of the curtained window. In his dream state he moved, shaking his way towards the desk. Trembling, he opened the drawer. Inside, atop the usually clutter of notes, sat a small piece of clean white paper, written on with a harsh scrawl of black ink. The ink proclaimed a simple request: FIND NATHANIEL CORNERSTONE.