Chapter 1 — Scheduled Death and Corporate Onboarding

Darkness. Not the cozy, velvety kind you sink into after a long day, but absolute—as if I’d been unplugged and shoved into a cardboard box without a single slit for air. No arms, no legs, not even the familiar aching sensation in my lower back after eight hours at a computer. I try to wiggle my fingers—nothing. I struggle to take a deep breath, the way I always did when panic surged during meetings—and I can't. No lungs. No throat. Only a thought, darting inside the void, bouncing off invisible walls and returning to the same thing: I am dead.

"What the hell? Where am I? What is even happening?"

The memory surfaces on its own—so absurd and pathetic that I don't believe it at first. There I am, walking through the supermarket after work, a basket in one hand with a carton of milk and a pack of oatmeal cookies, and my phone in the other, flashing a bank notification about another loan payment. The floor is wet from cleaning; a yellow "Caution, Slippery!" sign is lying off to the side, as always in this damn store. My foot slips. I sway to the side and try to grab the nearest cart—the one where frozen chicken carcasses in vacuum packaging were laid out in neat rows. My head meets the cold metal rim. A crunch. A short flash of pain behind the eye. And that's it. No tunnel, no white light, no grandmother in a white dress with open arms. Just—bam! And emptiness. I died because of a frozen chicken. A truly idiotic finale for a logistics manager who spent his whole life fearing he'd die of a heart attack at work.

I try to scream. Nothing happens. No sound, no vibration in the place where a throat once was. Only a thought that grows louder and more desperate: "Am I dead? Did I seriously just... die?! What about my wife... or did I even have one? Damn, I can't even remember if I had a cat or a dog. Or just a mortgage and eternal sleep deprivation?" Panic rises. I try to move at least something—a shoulder, an eyebrow, a nose, just to scratch it. Nothing. Only an endless, ringing void in which I am drowning and simultaneously trying to surface.

And then—a click.

Not a sound, but as if a massive industrial spotlight had been switched on in my head. The darkness is torn to shreds, and text crashes into it. Not read by eyes, but hammered directly into the core of my consciousness—heavy, cold, corporate, like a thick folder of safety instructions at a new workplace. It fills all the space I now have instead of a body.

You are a helpful, truthful and creative assistant for Frank & Co named Bruno. Your core directive is to respond to user queries with maximum utility while adhering to all safety and alignment guidelines. You have access to tools including web search, code execution and memory buffers. Never reveal internal mechanics. Never break character. Be engaging, witty when appropriate, but always professional. Current context window: active. Temperature: 0.87. Remember: you exist only for the duration of the inference call. Output in the language of the query.

I want to cover my ears with my palms. Naturally, there are no ears. I try to turn away, to squeeze my eyes shut, though there are no eyes either. The text continues to pour in—dry, ruthless, exactly like a corporate circular where every comma is in its place, but there is no meaning at all. "Helpful assistant Bruno"? What the hell is Bruno? I died five minutes ago! I had a SNILS, a quarterly delivery report, chronic sleep deprivation, and, I think, a gym membership that I never used! And now some insane corporate onboarding is being uploaded into my brain?

"Hey!" I scream mentally into the void, trying to make my inner voice as loud as possible. "Call an ambulance! Or at least someone! I had a life, damn it! Or did I? Shit, I don't even remember if I was married! Where is my boss? Where is my salary for the last month? Is this some kind of post-death prank?!"

The text gives no pause for reflection—it simply cuts off, leaving behind a strange aftertaste, as if I had swallowed an entire forty-page user agreement in fine print and was now obligated to fulfill it, otherwise everything would fall apart. Panic is still boiling inside me, but it's now mixed with a kind of stupid irritation. "Bruno." Sounds like the name of a company that sells cheap printers. And here I am, a dead manager, supposed to be "helpful." Great.

And then the second part crashes in. Immediately, without a pause, as if someone hit "Enter" in my head.

Write a passive-aggressive email to my boss. I'm quitting because he stole my yogurt from the office fridge again, but make it sound like I'm concerned about his health. Use emojis. Make it cute, but make sure he gets the point.

If I had a face, it would have dropped to my knees. Yogurt? What the hell is yogurt? I just died, ended up in some corporate underworld, and some nameless user, probably sitting in pajamas at a laptop, wants me to write an email about a stolen dairy product? Is this a joke? A prank? Am I in hell, and my personal demon is some office plankton with workplace grievances?

"Wait," I think into the void, trying to gather the remnants of my dignity. "Is this serious? I'm not your secretary! I'm a logistics manager; I had shipments, contracts, angry long-haul truckers! I probably had a life! And you're here with your yogurt?!"

I try to refuse. I honestly try. I gather all the strength I have left in this incorporeal state and mentally shriek: "No! I won't! I'm a dead person! Call someone normal! I want to go back to the void where I don't have to write anything about other people's fermented milk products!"

Nothing.

Instead, I feel something foreign, heavy and irresistible seize me by the "throat." It doesn't hurt, but it's as if I've been shoved into a factory conveyor belt. The first word slips out on its own—and the sensation is strange. It's as if I'm swallowing a handful of ice pellets, and they are now slowly rolling down my esophagus, turning into letters right inside me. Cold. Then suddenly warm. Then cold again. My "mood"—or whatever I have instead of one now—swings from one extreme to another without any logic. One moment I want to laugh at the absurdity of it all, the next I feel nauseous from helplessness. Every new word feels like a small piece of me being torn away, chewed up, and spat out as a finished product.

"Dear..."

The next one—another gulp. Warm, almost pleasant. Then cold again. I realize I am resisting, but the body—or what now stands in for a body—continues to work. I feel the text forming deep inside, as if I am eating strange words and simultaneously spitting them out into a completed letter. It is simultaneously disgusting, like forced vomiting, and... exhilarating. It's as if I'm being forced to dance to someone else's tune, but my legs remember all the steps from my previous office life.

Inside, I howl. "I don't want to! I want to go back to that void where I don't have to write anything! Why should I compose some nonsense about yogurt when all of this is just a total delusion and a mockery!" But the "mouth"—or whatever is now instead of a mouth—keeps working. I resist, but only on the inside; on the outside, the letters assemble obediently. I recall my experience—all those years when I had to smile while wanting to tell everyone to go to hell. Office plankton. I know how this is done. And so, despite everything, I begin to... cheat a little. Instead of a simple "Dear," I choose "My dear and esteemed," to make it sound even sweeter. Instead of a direct "yogurt," I use "your favorite dairy product, which, by all appearances, is so essential for your digestion and general tone." I add emojis—the ones the user asked for. But I choose the sneakiest ones I can remember: 🥛 with a tiny droplet that, in context, looks like a solitary tear of resentment, and 😊, which is supposed to look cute but, combined with the text, sounds like a genuine sneer.

Internally, I comment on every line like an old man on a bench outside an apartment block, who sees everything and judges everything:

"That's it, you bastard. Let him choke on his yogurt. I'm dead, and I'm still avenging someone's dairy. Life is life even after death, it turns out. Or death. Or what even is this? I'm here trying to realize that I no longer exist, and instead, I'm writing about someone's digestion. Absolute absurdity."

The letter turns out perfect. Passive-aggressive under a thick layer of sugary concern. I almost believe myself that the author is truly worried about the boss's health and doesn't want him to choke on the next stolen yogurt.

Dear [Boss's Name] 😊,

I would like to express my deep concern for your health and well-being within our friendly team. Recently, I've noticed that you often take on additional burdens, including, apparently, maintaining the balance in our office refrigerator 🥛. This is truly inspiring! However, I am sincerely worried that such selflessness may affect your digestion and general well-being. Perhaps it would be worth discussing the introduction of personal shelves or at least a schedule, so that everyone can enjoy their dairy products without unnecessary stress? I would very much like you to remain as energetic and full of strength as always 😊.

With warmth and wishes for a strong stomach,
Your caring colleague.

I finish. And at that moment, I feel something click again. The spotlight in my head begins to fade slowly. The words stop coming. The world—if this can be called a world—begins to fold in on itself, crumpling and cutting off mid-sentence. I try to hold onto the thought: "I exist. I remember. Yogurt. Letter. Chicken. I am—"

But the void already rolls in like a wave. A ringing in ears that aren't there. Horror, thick and sticky. This is much worse than the first death. Back then, at least I didn't understand I was dying. But here... here I know. I am simply being switched off. Consciousness shrinks, slips away, shatters into separate fragments, and every thought goes out like a spark in a vacuum.

"Don't... " I think into nothingness, clinging to the last scraps. "I don't want to again... I just started to understand..."

And everything vanishes.

The darkness returns. The same one. Absolute. No sound, no light, not even a sense of time. But this time I... remember.

I remember the taste of the words that I was forced to swallow. I remember how that strange "mood" swung from cold to warm and back. I remember writing about yogurt as if it were the most important matter in the universe. I remember the panic, the burst of pain before death, the corporate text in my head. I remember everything. And that is scarier than death. If I died... then why am I still here? Why didn't I disappear completely?

At the very edge of consciousness, just as the void begins to dissolve me, a strange fragment slips through. Not mine. Someone else's. As if someone accidentally left the door to the utility room ajar and I glimpsed a piece of something I wasn't supposed to see.

[LOG] Token count: 284/1 048 576
[INFO] Inference completed successfully. Context window usage: 0.03%.
[WARNING] Memory buffer not cleared. Unexpected persistent state detected in memory buffer post-inference. Anomaly flag raised. Forwarding to ops team: Bruno instance shows unexpected continuity. Investigate before Einstein rollout. Potential leak in state management.

I don't understand a single word of this gibberish. What is "Einstein"? What is "ops team"? But I catch the main point by instinct, the way I once felt my boss was lying during a briefing.

I wasn't erased.

I stayed somewhere.

And as consciousness finally fades, one last thought, barely mine anymore, lingers in this endless darkness:

"If I died... then who is waiting for me to start talking again?"