Chương 1: Start Reading

Robert Stadler was a boring man. He knew that he was a boring man. Was happy with it, even. Boring meant safety. Boring meant quiet nights at home without unnecessary drama. Boring meant that the rent was always paid on time and the lights were never turned off. The rest of Robert's family hadn't been boring.

He had spent the entirety of his childhood with his nose pressed into a book, trying to ignore his parent's screaming matches, his sibling's quick descent into drug abuse, and the all too frequent visits of law enforcement to their apartment. It had paid off, however. The scholarships he'd obtained allowing him a full ride at an ivy adjacent school. He didn't think twice before going into finance. He was tired of being poor.

Tired of always living in suspense of what new catastrophe was about to strike and dreading what he'd be asked to sacrifice to fix it. He'd ended up cutting off the rest of his family a little over a decade after his graduation. It had been a long time coming, but he had held onto the connection out of some misplaced sense of familial guilt and obligation. It had taken a near-intervention from his fiancé in order for him to see the truth about their relationship.

All the unpaid 'loans', the backhanded compliments, the expectations and sense of entitlement. They weren't even particularly subtle about it. It was all there in the very nickname they'd given him in the family group chat. Bob the Walking Bank. He'd ignored it when it'd first popped up. He worked in the banking industry after all and it wasn't a secret that he'd loaned all of them money. He figured it was just a joke one of them had come up with.

It hadn't been particularly funny, but they'd never been either, so that wasn't much of a surprise. The fact that he had to be sat down by the woman he loved, to have it directly pointed out to him what a shit thing that was to call a family member, showed how much they had managed to brainwash him over the years. It really encapsulated exactly what the rest of his family had felt about him. And that feeling didn't seem to have much relationship with love or concern; outside of for themselves.

Which was why – almost six years later – it was so utterly devastating to see that name pop up again. Only this time in a text message between his now wife and her affair partner.

'Bob the Walking Bank' was apparently paying for their exotic getaway. An expense he'd been told was for her mother's hospital bills, as well as spending money for his wife to stay with her through chemo. Bob shivered slightly in the cold as he attempted to take another draw on a smoldering cigarette; coughing almost immediately after. He'd never been tempted to smoke before. Even looked down on his siblings when they used to steal cigarettes from their parents to light up behind the school dumpster.

Tonight, however, was a night for bad decisions. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! The sloshing of the bottle in his other hand seemed to agree with him. It also served double duty by reminding him it was there, causing his arm to jerkily bring it up to his lips and swallow down another mouthful; nearly forgetting to move the cigarette out of the way in time.

The abrupt motion caused him to stumble slightly, wishing he had more arms available to him as he bent backward and used his stomach to stabilize himself against the bridge's railing. Back arched and bottle dangerously close to spilling.

"Whoops!" He laughed to himself as he felt a stream of alcohol run down the back of his arm.

"That coulda been dangerous… Good thing for safety railings." He continued to lean there for a moment after regaining his stability. The cold steel of the barrier feeling amazing against the hot skin underneath his shirt. He honestly wasn't sure how he'd ended up on the bridge in the first place. It certainly hadn't been his intention upon setting out that evening. Then again, things had gotten a bit blurry around the time he'd lost his suit-jacket and misplaced his keys.'

I'm probably going to need to do something about those in the morning.' He thought to himself as he raised the bottle back to his mouth. His mind was debating whether he'd left them in the bar with the giant riding bull or the one with all the bubbles when the loud blare of a horn drew his attention to the other end of the bridge. He wasn't overly worried about the sound; it seemed too far off for the noise to be directed at him and he felt decently safe in the section of the bridge set aside for pedestrians.

He really only glanced over out of curiosity. In the fractions of a second it was given; his brain was barely able to process the image of a large box truck careening towards the railing before it impacted. After that, his conscious mind retreated, replaced by blackness and a whirling sense of vertigo. He didn't see the wildly out of control vehicle smash completely through all protective barriers to land in the river below. Didn't hear the railing snap from the pressure somewhere off to his left.

Didn't even truly feel it as the barrier he was leaning against, using a massive concrete pylon as a fulcrum, slammed into his torso with bone-powdering force; flinging his mangled body almost twelve hundred feet into the distance. Doctors would later describe him as dead prior to impact. Saving him the indignity of apologizing to the poor family whose river-side apartment he had so rudely entered without permission; crashing through their bayside window in an explosion of guts and gore.

Local newspapers reporting on his death the following day would post their stories next to a picture of the damaged bridge. One which showed his shoes – still laced – in near the exact spot he'd once been standing. Some listing his demise 'a real-world lesson in physics' in an attempt at levity. He was aware of none of this of course.

Though, if he were, he would have been delighted to know that his wife's week-long, no-tech, international vacation allowed his family more than enough time to challenge her for his estate. Then again, perhaps he would be too busy to care. For, despite the fact that what remained of Robert Stadler had to be rolled up in multiple body bags, there was a greater universe out there that wasn't finished with him yet. It just didn't happen to be this one.