You fumbled for your phone, knocking a half-empty water glass off the nightstand. The screen glared: 7:48 AM. Your first day at Domain Holdings started at 8:30. The corporate headquarters was a thirty-minute train ride from your apartment on a good day. This was not a good day.

The next twenty-two minutes were a blur of dampened panic. A rushed shower, teeth brushed so hastily your gums protested, and the struggle into the stiff, new blazer and slacks you’d bought specifically for this job. The fabric felt like a costume.

You burst out of your apartment building into the humid Tokyo morning, joining the river of salarymen and office workers flowing toward the station. The dream’s residue—that feeling of being watched, the scent of something metallic and old—clung to you like a second skin.

By the time you skidded to a halt in the soaring, coldly elegant lobby of the Domain Holdings tower, your heart was a frantic drum against your ribs. The reception desk was a long, polished slab of black marble. The woman behind it looked up, her expression perfectly neutral.