Corporate Necromancy

Elena sat in her corner office on the forty-second floor, looking out at the city skyline. The headquarters building—a glass pyramid rising from the financial district—caught the last light of sunset, casting elongated shadows across her desk. She'd been working here for seven years, climbing each level of the corporate pyramid with ruthless efficiency.

"You're becoming one of them," Marcus had told her three months ago, when he'd packed his boxes and left the firm. "A zombie."

She'd laughed then. She wasn't laughing now.

The assignment had come in at 11:47 PM. Simple corporate espionage task— infiltrate their biggest competitor's upcoming product launch, document the prototype, report back. Elena had done this a dozen times before. But this time, something felt different. Maybe it was the way her reflection caught in the darkened window—hollow eyes, skin that seemed paler each day, a mechanical quality to her movements.

Maybe it was the dreams.

In her dreams, she was already dead, moving through the world without pulse or breath, hunger gnawing at something that no longer existed. She would wake at 3:00 AM, heart racing, and check her phone for messages from the firm. Always something. Always urgent. Always meaningless.

"You're a good spy, Elena," her supervisor had said during her last review. "You don't let emotions interfere. That's rare."

Rare. That was the word they used instead of broken.

She stood up and walked to the window. Down below, the city was coming alive—people leaving bars, couples walking home, late-night diners pouring coffee. Living people. People who still felt things, who still had something to lose.

Elena pressed her hand against the glass. The pyramid's angles distorted her reflection, stretching it into something grotesque. Not dead. Not alive. Something in between, sustained by caffeine and ambition and the steady erosion of everything that had once made her human.

"Marcus was right," she whispered to the empty room.

Her phone buzzed on the desk. Another assignment. Another chance to climb higher, to dig deeper into the pyramid's dark heart, to become less of who she was meant to be.

Elena didn't pick up the phone. Instead, she walked to the door, turned off the lights, and stepped into the elevator without looking back.