"Don't be harsh on him old man! He is starting to learn you know," said Mira encouragingly, her voice a lifeline in the turbulent sea of his thoughts. For Elias, her voice was like cold water in the middle of a hot summer, a voice that could help him from being drowned in his own anxieties.
"He is extremely lucky to meet you. Richard that bastard is good at doing his own things but really sucks at educating his child. And that sneaky old bastard gave the task of educating his child to you. What an irresponsible bastard, I can't imagine what Lillian saw from him." said the old man mockingly, a hint of something else beneath the sarcasm, perhaps a grudging respect for Mira.
"Well I owe him a lot. Not to mention I enjoy these past few days," said Mira, a soft smile on her face as she looked at Elias warmly, a silent affirmation of their connection.
Elias only listened to their conversation blankly, but inside his mind was a chaos of swirling thoughts and emotions.
"How's your condition girl?" asked William with a slight worry, the gruffness momentarily softening.
"Don't you see me old man? I am alive and kicking!" answered Mira brightly, a defiant spark in her eyes.
"Is that so…" William nodded, a flicker of understanding passing between them. There was no pity in his gaze, only respect and encouragement, a recognition of her strength.
The butler then came in, silent as a shadow, bringing teas and snacks, the clinking of porcelain a slight respite for Elias, a brief interruption to the intensity of the conversation.
"I had it all once, kid," he said, after he sipped the tea, the warm liquid seemingly soothing his rough edges.
His voice was low yet fierce, each word deliberate, weighted with the lessons of a lifetime.
"Money. Status. A goddamn kingdom this…." he jabbed a finger and stepped his old shoes on the gleaming floor, the scuff mark a small defiance in the perfect setting, "…is nothing but the bones of a life spent chasing a finish line that doesn't exist."
Silence pressed against the walls, heavy with the weight of regret, the unspoken stories of a life dedicated to accumulation.
Mira sat quietly, her arms folded across her chest, silently observing Elias, a flicker of something soft and understanding in her eyes, witnessing his internal struggle.
"I burned through marriages," William continued, voice gravelly and raw, recounting the casualties of his ambition.
"Burned through friends. Burned through time. Always chasing the next big deal, the next big score."
His mouth twisted with disdain, bitterness rising like bile, a taste of the emptiness that remained.
"And guess what?"
He slammed his palm against the side table, making Mira jump slightly, the sudden sound echoing in the vast room, tension crackling in the air like electricity.
"You can't buy back time, boy." The statement landed heavily, a truth that resonated deep within Elias, following him like a haunting echo.
"I spent my whole goddamn life thinking there would always be more," William spat, venom pouring from each syllable, the regret a palpable force.
"More years. More second chances. More goddamn people willing to wait around for me to stop being an asshole."
He paused, the silence amplifying the impact of his next words.
"But life doesn't wait."
He leaned back heavily in the chair, suddenly looking impossibly small inside the sprawling, glittering room, the grandeur of his surroundings a stark contrast to his own diminished state.
"Now I got a thousand rooms," he said softly, vulnerability cracking through his tough exterior, a raw admission of loneliness.
"And no one left to fill 'em."
The words hit Elias harder than any boardroom betrayal, any closed-door argument, any hollow victory he'd ever known. Because deep down, in the quiet, vulnerable core of himself, he could see it.
Himself. Older. Alone.
Choking on everything he thought would save him. A life full of trophies, devoid of purpose, overflowing with successes, yet there would be no one left to celebrate them, no one to share the empty victory.
Mira stood and crossed to Elias's side without a word, her presence a silent anchor. She didn't touch him. She didn't have to.
He felt her there — solid, warm, a living reminder that he still had a choice. He still had time.
Not forever — but enough.
Enough to decide differently. Enough to live differently. If he was brave enough. If he was willing to stop running, to face the emptiness that had been lurking just beneath the surface of his carefully constructed life.
"You are in your prime now kid. In your youth. It's not wrong to chase after your ambition, but what's more important is the meaning of it." said William, his voice softening, as if an elder lecturing the youngster, passing on hard-earned wisdom.
"When you reach my age, everything that you have done in the past is like an illusion. It's as if you are in a long dream, and in that dream is your whole live, from when you were young until old. But the moment you wake up from that dream, you realize that death is coming closer to you. So close that you could see them with naked eyes." said William with a tone that was full of regrets, the weight of a lifetime of choices pressing down on him.
"At that time, the things that you have is like a mirage that could gone every moment when your time is up." said William with a tone unexpectedly soft despite his aggressive personality, a vulnerability that was startling in its honesty.
"But what's important is what you have done in the past and their result. Also...." said William, he paused for a brief moment, letting the words hang in the air, and as he gazed into Elias's eyes deeply, piercing his soul, he added, "the meaning of that result. What impact that you brought from that result. Whether you are happy or not from that result. Whether that result brought positive impact or not to those surround you. The true meaning of your whole life."
Elias swallowed hard as he heard that, the words a mirror reflecting his own life back at him. He thought about his life choices until now. Whether he was happy or not with those choices. What kind of impact that he brought with those choices. The questions hung in the air, unanswered, demanding introspection.
William cracked a crooked grin, the gesture strained yet sincere, a hint of the man he might have been.
"You still have time, kid," he said, his harshness tempered by an unexpected kindness, a silent plea for Elias to choose a different path.
"But don't waste it. Or you'll end up like me."
A king in an empty castle. A master of nothing.
****
The cold hit harder when they stepped outside, as if the fabric of the universe had shifted while they were inside, the air outside colder, sharper, a stark contrast to the stifling warmth of the mansion. The heavy oak doors creaked shut behind them with a hollow, echoing finality, sealing them out of the gilded cage. For a moment, Elias just stood there — hands shoved deep into his pockets, his breath fogging in the crisp autumn air, lost in a labyrinth of thoughts, the weight of William's words pressing down on him.
The mansion loomed behind them, a silent monument to everything William Davenport had built. And lost.
Mira was quiet too, her usual energy subdued. She walked a few paces ahead, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat, her head bowed slightly against the chill, like she was carrying the heaviness of the world on her slender shoulders, the weight of shared understanding.
Elias caught up to her slowly, scuffing his boots against the cracked pavement, the sound a small disruption in the stillness. They walked without speaking, the city swallowing them back up one block at a time, the transition jarring after the opulence they had just witnessed.
It wasn't until they reached a small park — nothing more than a patch of battered grass and skeletal trees, the remnants of autumn conspiring against the brisk air, a place that felt more real after the artificial grandeur of the mansion — that Mira finally stopped. She sank onto a broken bench, the wood creaking beneath her slight weight, a sound that seemed to echo the weariness in her soul, the burden she carried.
Elias stood for a second, staring down at her, unsure if he could even find the words to express how much his chest ached, how the heaviness of realization felt like a stone lodged in his throat, preventing him from speaking.
Mira patted the empty space beside her without looking up, inviting, open, a silent offer of shared space and understanding. He sank down slowly beside her, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the ground between his boots as shadows danced around them, lengthening with the fading light. The wind rattled dead leaves along the sidewalk, an orchestra playing a requiem for the unspooled moments of life, for the time that couldn't be bought back.
Neither of them spoke for a long time. The silence wasn't awkward. It was necessary. A harsh yet soothing place to breathe, a space to process the weight of truths freshly unearthed, the raw reality of William's words.
Finally, Mira's voice cut through the air, soft but resounding with the echoes of strength, of hard-won wisdom. "You saw it, didn't you?"
Elias nodded stiffly, the admission heavy. "I saw it."
"The path you're walking," she said, her voice low, a quiet warning, "it doesn't end where you think it does."
He felt his heart constrict, a bated breath hanging between them, suspended in the cold air. She looked at him then, eyes wide and honest, soaked in something deeper than mere affection, something that felt like a profound understanding of his soul.
"It doesn't end at the top of some mountain where you finally feel full."
She shook her head slowly, conviction rooted in every movement, in the depth of her gaze.
"It ends in a mansion full of empty rooms. It ends with you realizing you spent your whole damn life chasing shadows."
Elias swallowed hard, the taste of reality bitter and raw in his mouth, a truth he had been desperately avoiding.
"I thought I had time," he said hoarsely, his voice trembling like autumn leaves in the wind, fragile and exposed.
Mira gave a small, sad smile — a knowing, understanding expression that spoke of shared pain and hard-won resilience.
"Everyone thinks that."
A gust of wind kicked up, rattling the brittle branches of the trees that guarded the park, a mournful sound.
"I don't want that," Elias insisted suddenly, the words ripping out of him, a desperate struggle to peel back layers of ignorance and denial, to reject the future he had been building.
Mira's gaze softened as she leaned toward him, her presence grounding his spiraling thoughts, a silent anchor in the storm. "Then don't," she said simply, yet so profoundly, the words an offering of choice and possibility.
"Start choosing different."
"But I don't know how," he admitted, voice raw, stripped bare, as if confessing a secret he had kept buried for far too long, a fundamental lack he couldn't hide.
Mira leaned back, tilting her head upward toward the gray, bruised sky, seeking solace in the confines of the heavens, in the vastness above.
"None of us do," she said, voice wistful, yet holding strength, a shared vulnerability.
"You just start anyway."
The weight of her words settled like lead in his bones, heavy but somehow liberating.
Not perfect. Not polished. Not easy. Just start.
Elias stared at her — this girl who seemed to have nothing by the world's standards but somehow carried everything he realized he wanted within her spirit, within her resilience and her capacity for care. And she was still fighting. Still choosing life. Even when the clock inside her ticked faster, even when the future stood uncertain and wounded, still she forged ahead, finding meaning in the small moments, in the connections she forged. Especially because the future wasn't guaranteed.
"It's a risk," he said softly, the thought crystallizing in the space between them, a leap into the unknown.
Mira nodded, her eyes clear and unwavering, meeting his gaze with a quiet courage.
"But it's a risk worth taking."
Elias knew he didn't deserve her, didn't deserve the gift of her unwavering belief, the quiet confidence she placed in him. But maybe it wasn't about deserving. Maybe it was about showing up anyway, battling against the tide of his fears — and losing, letting go of the need to be in control, to be perfect.
Mira bumped her knee gently against his, a small, grounding touch, bringing him back from the edge of self-doubt, from the abyss of his own making.
"Tomorrow," she said lightly, but with an undertone that caught his breath, a hint of something urgent and profound, "we're going somewhere different."
Elias glanced at her, eyebrows raising slightly in surprise, a flicker of anticipation replacing the earlier turmoil.
"Yeah?"
She nodded, a spark of something unyielding dancing in her gaze, a quiet determination.
"It's a place where the clocks tick louder."
Her voice dipped, weighted with urgency and sorrow threading through it, a reminder of the preciousness of time.
"A place where you really see how little time we get… and how much it's still worth."
He didn't ask for details. Didn't press for clarity. He just nodded in understanding, the destination less important than the journey itself, less important than who he was taking it with. Because some promises didn't need to be said out loud. He would go wherever she led. Even if it hurt. Even if it broke him. Especially if it made him feel alive.
The sky grew darker around them, the shadows deepening like the swell of uncharted waters, the city lights beginning to twinkle in the distance. The city lights blinked on, one by one, illuminating the hidden stories around them, the lives lived in the shadows and in the light.
The world spun forward. And so did they. Together.
Toward tomorrow. Toward whatever was waiting for them next, a future uncertain but faced together.
Toward the ticking clocks and the fragile hearts still choosing to beat anyway.
As they sat on the bench, the weight of the moment settled uneasily. It was not just a chapter closed; it was a metamorphosis, a crossing of thresholds into an uncertain future — one that echoed with fragility, poignantly foretelling their next step.
For tomorrow, they would venture into a place where the essence of time was even more tenuous, weaving through the corridors of life and death, confronting the realities that often lay hidden beneath the veils of ambition.
And amidst it all, they would learn, together, the precious nature of every fleeting moment — a lesson about life and love, laughter and loss — and the profound beauty that lay within each heartbeat they shared.