The applause was thunderous, like stock tickers hitting all-time highs.

 

Derek Lang smiled, palms open as if accepting a divine offering, then clapped once—at himself. The stage lights warmed his face, haloing his perfectly tousled hair. Behind him, a massive LED screen read: “THE ALGORITHM OF WINNING: HACKING LIFE ON YOUR TERMS.”

 

“Remember,” he said, pacing with the confidence of a prophet, “the universe doesn’t reward the humble—it rewards the hungry. Play nice if you want to lose,” he said. “Or play smart if you want to win.”

 

Laughter, mostly from men in tailored blazers and crypto-logo pins. Phones were out, already capturing soundbites for social media. Somewhere in the back, a VC with teeth like bleached piano keys shouted, “Hell yeah!”

 

He grinned. “Look, I didn’t grow up rich. I just refused to stay poor. Life’s a game. I figured out the code. Code your own future, or get coded by someone else. Simple.”

 

He paused for effect, letting the silence inflate his ego one last time.

 

“Time,” he said, glancing at his Rolex, “is the only real currency. And I’m buying it in bulk.”

 

More applause. Standing ovation. Derek gave a mock bow and exited stage left, already fishing his phone out of his jacket. 

 

His assistant trotted beside him, whispering updates. “Your jet’s wheels-up in forty-five. Car’s waiting. Next event’s in Austin.”

 

“Perfect,” Derek muttered, half-listening as he texted something about a yacht party in Ibiza.

 

Then: buzz. A notification. Flight delay. Severe weather. Airport lockdown.

 

He frowned. “No. No, no, no.”

 

“Sorry, sir,” said the assistant, scanning her phone. “It’s grounded. Might be a few hours.”

 

Derek stopped mid-stride, staring at the elevator ahead of him.

 

“Fine,” he snapped. “Let’s just get down and out of this circus.”

 

The assistant started to follow but peeled off as her phone rang.

 

Derek stepped into the elevator alone, muttering under his breath.

 

Just before the doors slid shut, a short, brown-skinned woman in a housekeeping uniform and cart slipped in. A young girl accompanied her with a half-eaten granola bar in one hand and her mother’s worn leather bag in the other.

 

He barely glanced at them. Background NPCs, was the way he thought of such people — the kind of looped characters you breeze past in a video game. Necessary for atmosphere. Invisible in practice.

 

The girl looked up at him, curious.

 

Derek didn’t look down.

 

The elevator jolted, then stopped between floors shortly after the doors closed.

 

Silence.

 

The hum of the building seemed to hold its breath.

 

Derek glanced at the floor indicator. It blinked. Then froze. He jabbed the “Lobby” button. Nothing. Pressed “Door Open.” Nothing. Then, finally: a sigh, and stillness.

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.

 

He tapped his phone. No signal, of course. Thirty-two billion dollars in crypto assets, and he couldn’t get a single bar inside a glass-and-steel tomb.

 

The woman beside him shifted her bag quietly. The movement rustled the air, drawing Derek’s attention for the first time. She was short—barely to his elbows—but heavy and sturdy, with calm eyes and a uniform embroidered with a tag that read “Carla.” Her hair was tied up in a bun using a ball point pen, and her shoes were worn thin at the heels.

 

Beside her, the girl stood upright and alert. Her black eyes studied him—not with awe or anxiety, but something else. Composure. Something unsettling in someone so young.

 

Derek cleared his throat and cracked his neck, hoping for a satisfying pop. None came.

 

“How long’s this gonna take?” he asked no one in particular.

 

The girl turned to her mother, who said something soft in Spanish.

 

“She says she doesn’t know,” the girl translated. Her voice was clear and unhurried.

 

Derek nodded once. “Right. Well, I’ve got a plane to catch.”

 

Another pause. 

 

The girl turned to her mother again. Another soft exchange.

 

“She says, the sky will wait,” the girl said.

 

Derek raised an eyebrow. “Very poetic,” he said, voice tinged with sarcasm, checking his phone again for any bars.

 

The girl only smiled.

 

Derek hadn’t always been rich. He liked to say that on stage, though it had been a long time since the phrase carried any real truth. The hunger was gone, replaced by something else: momentum, maybe inertia. The sense that he was no longer climbing, just orbiting.

 

The real Derek Lang had died somewhere in a WeWork conference room in 2015, after closing his first Series A and being called a “visionary.” From that point on, he learned to perform himself—a curated persona of brute optimism, crypto swagger, and just enough cynicism to seem clever.

 

He knew how to play it humble in interviews. “Oh, I’ve been lucky,” he’d say with a grin. But he didn’t believe in luck. Not really. He believed in leverage, in volume. In taking risks bigger than anyone else was willing to. He’d built a digital casino and rigged it so the house always won—and he was the house.

 

And now?

 

Now he was stuck in an elevator with a hotel maid and her daughter. No signal. No assistant. No exit. Just a weirdly calm child watching him like she could see beneath his skin.

 

The girl turned to her mother, who said something else in Spanish. The two of them spoke back and forth—fluid, calm, as if nothing were wrong.

 

Derek crossed his arms and tapped his foot.

 

“All right,” he said, trying to sound amused. “What’s the gossip?”

 

The girl looked up. “She didn’t like your talk.”

 

Derek blinked. “Excuse me?”

 

“She said… it was full of empty gold.”

 

He frowned. “Empty gold?…She doesn’t even speak English.”

 

“She knows enough,” the girl said, without malice.

 

Carla looked at him directly now. Her face calm. Still. She didn’t need to understand his words—she had heard his tone. 

 

She said something else, her voice low and steady.

 

The girl listened, then translated. “She says… no one stands alone. Not even the tallest man.”

 

Derek rolled his eyes. “Look, I didn’t come here for a philosophy lesson. I just want to get out of this damn elevator.”

 

More Spanish. The girl listened, nodded, then translated:

 

“She says, the universe heard you.”

 

He looked up—half in disbelief, half in irritation. “Okay…And?”

 

The elevator stayed still.

 

“She says, sometimes the answer is no.”

 

Derek scoffed, but a drop of sweat slipped down his back.

 

The girl leaned against the mirrored wall, settling in, while her mother remained still and at ease.  Derek, by contrast, fidgeted as if the walls were shrinking around him.

 

“Look,” he muttered. “You don’t know me.”

 

The girl didn’t respond. Her mother watched quietly, her gaze steady but unreadable.

 

The woman spoke, soft and low.

 

Then the elevator dropped.

 

A sudden jolt. Just a foot or two. Enough to make the handrail jerk against his palm and the lights flicker once.

 

Derek braced himself, breath caught. 

 

When he looked down, he saw them. A column of ants emerging from a crack in the floor’s edge, scaling the mirrored wall. Neat, ordered. Purposeful.

 

He stared. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He raised his shoe.

 

“Look at how they climb,” the girl said. Calm. Observing.

 

He hesitated.

 

The mother murmured again.

 

“They all believe they’re going somewhere new.”

 

Derek lowered his foot slightly.

 

“They don’t know they’re just following a scent.”

 

He said nothing.

 

Then the girl added, “Men aren’t so different.”

 

Derek narrowed his eyes. “Are you suggesting I’m…?”

 

The girl didn’t flinch. “Only if you forget you’re in line.”

 

He looked again at the trail. One ant slipped, faltered. It flailed for a moment before merging back into the pattern.

 

“They don’t leave a name. Just a groove.”

 

He exhaled through his nose. “This is absurd.”

 

The girl tilted her head. “That’s what they say when the ground shifts.”

 

A long pause.

 

Derek was finally beginning to listen to the words. Then he did something strange—he knelt. Not in surrender. Not in revelation. Just… tired. Like someone realizing how much their body had been doing without any thanks.

 

He sat.

 

The ants kept climbing.

 

The mirrored wall threw back their shapes in fractured repetition. Derek stared at them without blinking. His body folded in on itself, breath evening out.

 

“She says,” the girl added gently, “you’ve been trying to win a game that can’t be won.”

 

Derek said nothing.

 

“Collecting more,” she continued. “But to what end?”

 

He pressed his thumb into his palm. The skin there was raw. He hadn’t noticed until now.

 

The elevator seemed smaller now—not physically, but in density. As if everything inside it had shifted slightly toward something truer.

 

Derek looked up. His eyes found Carla’s. She hadn’t spoken in minutes. She hadn’t moved. But it felt like she had spoken every word.

 

“Why now?” he thought. “Why here?”

 

The girl looked at him, not unkindly. “Because you stopped moving.”

 

The elevator hummed faintly overhead.

 

Derek sat still, one leg folded beneath him, the other crooked outward. He watched the ants climb in a slow, unbroken rhythm. The mirrored panel behind them caught their ascent, doubling the movement—an endless procession going nowhere.

 

He ran a hand through his hair.

 

“How long have they been here?” he asked.

 

The girl shrugged. “Long enough.”

 

He looked up at her, her small frame leaning against the rail.

 

“They were here before us,” she added.

 

“And?”

 

She considered. “They’ll be here after.”

 

Carla’s voice murmured again. Soft. Unhurried.

 

The girl translated without glancing away from Derek.

 

“She says, the line forgets the ones who fall.”

 

He watched an ant tumble sideways. It writhed briefly, then vanished into the seam.

 

“They walk until they vanish,” the girl continued. “But the scent remains.”

 

Derek blinked. “You mean… they follow each other’s path.”

 

“It’s the only path they know,” she answered.

 

He let that settle, then looked away.

 

Carla hadn’t moved. She might have been listening. She might have been praying. She might have been waiting. Her eyes were closed, her breath quiet.

 

The girl stepped forward, her voice more like breath now.

 

“She says… the strong believe the path belongs to them. But the path is not theirs.”

 

“Whose is it then?”

 

She paused.

 

“The path belongs to the ground.”

 

That caught him. He looked up.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

The girl just tilted her head. “You’ve been walking like the floor owes you something.”

 

He opened his mouth to argue. Then closed it.

 

He looked at his hands. The cuff of his shirt was rumpled. The watch sat heavy on his wrist.

 

“But how?” he murmured.

 

“You asked to rise,” the girl said. “But forgot who lifted.”

 

He rubbed his eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper.

 

“I didn’t mean to…”

 

“To forget?” she offered.

 

He nodded.

 

“She says, forgetting is part of climbing. You climb, so, you forget.”

 

The elevator gave a soft click. Then nothing.

 

The ants kept climbing.

 

Derek shifted on the floor, running a hand down his pant leg. The fabric felt unfamiliar. Wrong, somehow—like someone else’s skin. He scratched absently at his calf, then his forearm.

 

The ants were multiplying.

 

Not just one column anymore. Several. From the baseboard, from a vent, from an unseen seam behind the control panel—they emerged in silent numbers, orderly at first, then less so.

 

He looked up at the mirrored walls.

 

There were hundreds of them. Marching in reflections. Inverting. Splitting. Crossing over each other like tangled thoughts in a sleepless brain.

 

“Jesus,” he muttered.

 

He slapped his arm. Nothing was there.

 

The girl and her mother hadn’t moved. Carla’s eyes were still closed. The girl watched quietly, but she no longer seemed curious—only steady. As if she’d seen this before.

 

Derek tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.

 

“They’re in my clothes,” he said. “I can feel them.”

 

He pulled at his collar. Loosened the top button. Scratched his chest.

 

“They’re crawling on me,” he whispered, now frantic. “They’re crawling—”

 

He slapped his ankle. Tore open his cuff. Nothing.

 

But his body wouldn’t believe it.

 

He stood suddenly, breathing hard. Backed against the mirror.

 

“Get them off me.”

 

The girl spoke, voice like wind through cracks.

 

“She says… it’s not them.”

 

Derek panted. “What?”

 

“It’s the weight,” she said. “It has nowhere else to go.”

 

He looked at her. Her outline swam a little. Or maybe it was the elevator. Or maybe it was his own vision, cracking at the edges.

 

“I want out!” he hissed.

 

Another ant crept up the inside of his sleeve. This time he saw it. Or thought he did.

 

He screamed.

 

Tore off his jacket. Tossed it to the ground.

 

Clawed at his shirt, leaving red streaks across his chest.

 

“They’re inside,” he cried. “Inside me!”

 

The girl took one small step back. Not in fear. In reverence. Like she was watching a ritual unfold.

 

“She says…” the girl whispered, “you’re not being punished.”

 

“Then what the hell is this?”

 

“You’re being shown.”

 

Derek fell to his knees, shirt torn, hair wild. Sweat ran in rivers down his temple. His breath came in shallow bursts.

 

Carla opened her eyes.

 

Not wide. Just enough to see.

 

And in that look, there was no judgment. No surprise. Just the quiet acknowledgment of a soul being returned to the fire.

 

The ants climbed still.

 

Derek stumbled backward. The elevator was now tilting—or maybe it was just him. The mirrored walls shimmered as if slick with heat. He blinked, hard, but the reflections didn’t return to normal. They multiplied.

 

In every panel, the ants were climbing—not just in lines now, but in swarms. And they had faces. Human faces. Familiar ones. Not exact replicas, but masks made from ambition and smirk.

 

There was a man in a powdered wig, clutching land deeds like gospel. Another with railroad soot on his collar and hunger in his eyes. A man with a monocle and a diamond cane. Tech bros in hoodies and baseball caps. Bankers with hedge fund logos embroidered on their sleeves. Cold eyes. Hungry teeth.

 

All of them climbing. All of them stepping over each other, smiling as they did.

 

Elon. Zuck. Bezos. Carnegie. Rockefeller—over and over, the same grin pasted onto every face. The Trumps. A Goldman Sachs executive devouring a stack of bills like toast.

 

Derek gasped. “What—what is this?”

 

The girl didn’t move.

 

Her voice was low, as if quoting something old:

 

“She says… these are your kin.”

 

He staggered forward. “No.”

 

“They lived like gods,” the girl said. “Above law. Above land. Above people. Until the earth swallowed them whole.”

 

Derek gripped the railing. His reflection grinned back at him—not his real face, but one of the ants wearing his skin.

 

“She says,” the girl continued, “they built pyramids out of flesh and called it destiny.”

 

The elevator began to creak. The mirrored walls flexed, as if breathing. The ants surged upward, stepping on one another’s faces, crushing limbs, laughing as they climbed.

 

He saw their hands now—manicured, gold-ringed. Grasping. Always grasping. A mass of hunger.

 

“She says,” the girl went on, “they each believed they were the final one. The master of the game. But there is no top. Only more climb. And no end. Only gravity.”

 

One of the ants turned its head. It was Derek.

 

Hundreds of them were.

 

Each with a slight variation—different watches, different suits, different smirks—but all unmistakably him.

 

And all of them climbing over each other.

 

“No,” Derek breathed. “No, no, no—”

 

One Derek-ant slipped. It flailed, then was trampled underfoot by three others. Another laughed as he climbed over his own face.

 

Derek pressed himself against the corner of the elevator.

 

“They’re me,” he whispered.

 

“They’re what comes before you,” said the girl. “And what comes after.”

 

The ants swarmed now—not just on the walls, but through the air, as if reality had a seam and they were spilling through it. Their voices were laughter. Greedy, triumphant, hollow.

 

“You are nothing but a rung,” they chorused. “A rung on a ladder that leads nowhere.”

 

Derek panicked.

 

The ants were crawling over him now—through his collar, into his ears, behind his eyes. Not biting. Just moving. Crawling. Filling the space where his self once lived.

 

“Stop,” he gasped. “Stop—get off me!”

 

The girl stood still, untouched, watching him with solemn eyes. Her mother remained calm, as if the air itself had thickened to keep the ants away from them.

 

The swarm thickened. The walls glistened black with movement.

 

Then: form.

 

Above him, the ants began to gather—swirling upward, assembling at the ceiling, congealing into shape.

 

A mouth. Then more.

 

Eyes—too many.

 

Limbs—twisted, regal, grotesque.

 

A crown of crawling mandibles.

 

It loomed.

 

A pulsing god built from the bodies of all who had climbed, devoured, and declared themselves above the laws of men and matter. Pharaohs, tycoons, tech lords, emperors. Every one of them still crawling, still clinging. Still climbing.

 

Derek’s voice cracked.

 

“Is this… is this what I am?”

 

The girl’s eyes didn’t waver. “This is what thinks it cannot fall.”

 

The creature opened its mouth and began to consume the ants feeding it—one by one, with horrible calm. A line of them crawled willingly into its maw and between its teeth. Self-offering. Eager.

 

It ate its own.

 

Derek screamed.

 

And then—

 

Ding

 

Light. Bright. Artificial.

 

The elevator hummed softly.

 

The ants were gone.

 

Derek stood upright. His suit was pressed. His hair immaculate. He was breathing hard, but his posture was unchanged.

 

The hotel maid and her daughter stood as they had before. Carla pushed her cart forward. The girl held her mother’s bag, chewing the last bite of granola.

 

Derek turned to the girl, eyes wide. “What… what just happened?”

 

She looked at him, puzzled.

 

“Sorry,” she said, her accent thick and childlike. “I don’ speak English.”

 

The doors slid open.

 

They stepped out, disappearing down the hallway without a backward glance.

 

Derek stood alone.

 

Then he felt it—just below the cuff of his shirt. A tickle.

 

He raised his wrist.

 

An ant crawled across the fabric, slow and deliberate, as if on its way somewhere important.

 

He didn’t brush it off.

 

He just watched.

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