You are one of the many technicians stationed on this forsaken station full of crazy eccentric mages. You were assigned a couple years ago to oversee, assist and ensure the completion of Chaldea's now that their first official mission is underway. After so much work from everyone the first Rayshift mission received the approval of the Clock Tower, Atlas, the UN and the rest of the minor security offices required for it to actually be put to use and your presence in this place isolated from the rest of the world is finally justified.

You will be joining the rest of the team alongside the director later today in the main command room. And while this is the moment you have been waiting for after so long, you really are not looking forward to it. But a job is a job and the pay is good enough to justify the isolation that you've been subjected to on this assignment, and once you can cash it you will be able to retire back home and not worry about finances ever again.

Unfortunately, there is one small obstacle in your path. You are currently sitting in one of the stalls of the bathroom. Technically, once the operation's starts you won't be allowed to leave your post until the mission is completed or due to emergencies, and you would rather not give the Director any excuses to yell at you later on, so it was better to get this out of the way now.

If you had to be honest with yourself, you really should have been back at your post, you already finished your business in this place, but outside your stall there is this one crazy guy incoherently screaming, cursing and raving doomsayings to himself.

Normally you would just ignore whatever magus eccentricities go around the facility and be on your way, but you highly doubt this guy is part of Chaldea. If he is, he is having the worst pre-mission breakdown you have ever seen. You understand that some people may be nervous of the outcome due to investing so much time and resources in this place ensuring that failure is not an option for them. An all or nothing, sink or swim approach, a gamble with their careers on this station working as intended.

You understand that this whole magic shebang may be more important to the other half of this workforce than it is for you. But he isn't wearing any uniform, and the sports wear he has going on looks too cheap to be some mystic code or magus apparel. You don't like to be mean, but the way he is dissociating and speaking riddles to himself makes him look like a drugged up meth head that woke up drenched in sweat after running a marathon.

Now, intellectually, you know this place is secure enough that no one matching that description would be allowed entry, less alone have the resources needed to infiltrate the facility, but with magecraft involved you wouldn't put it pass it as someone placing a curse on some coworker after they took offense on something they said or did. And you really don't want to find out if the curse is contagious or if he is so far gone that he becomes hostile when he finds out you have been hearing him saying nonsense all this time without him knowing you were here. Really, the last thing you want to do is startle some magic dude and get a magic missile to the face weeks before the end of your assignment contract.

You hear names being thrown around, many of them you never hear before, some others sound like important figure heads. Despite looking like shit this man may be important. You half hear him muttering something about Lev, the director and Da Vinci without the context required to fully understand what's going on inside his head but those are enough for you to come to the conclusion that he is not part of the regular staff like you are.

Despite not looking the part, you are more than fully convinced this guy is a magus of some kind suffering some severe side effects of … Something … you really don't want to know, and you REALLY don't want to have anything to do with him.
So you are just going to stay sitting here in silence until he goes away.

You really don't want to know
You really don't want to get involved.

This is some other guy's problem.

You are here just to do your job and nothing more.
You really don't want to be part of magus politics.
You really should just pretend you didn't see anything.

But maybe you should send the doctor a message. If his problem is narcotic, maybe a sedative could help him calm down and that would take him off your hands and you could go back into your station.

You don't know him, you never seen him before, and It's obvious that if he was part of the working staff he is now in no condition to actually fulfill his task.

He is not your problem and all you want to do is go back to your desk.

But he isn't going away, he just keeps pacing back and forth in front of the stall mirror.
He did mention Da Vinci.
If he is under a curse of some kind or something similar from the magic side of things you are sure that the resident self proclaimed genius could deal with it. Dispel it or wave some contraption and make it go away.

You really shouldn't get involved.

But if he doesn't know it's YOU who did it then he can't hold it against you.
So a few minutes later you hear the clockwork noises of a mechanical bird enter the bathroom.
You hear the confused noises of the madman as he points at it and starts screaming something that almost manages to approximate a demand before you hear his body hit the floor.
You hear a couple of guys, you assume from security or whatnot, taking whoever that was away on a stretcher.
Provably to the infirmary so Romani can have a look at him.
You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding.
And your heartbeat goes back to normal.
Finally is over.

You wait for a minute or two more for those guys to leave as well, so no one can connect you as the guy who snitched.
You really don't want any kind of vendetta for some imaginary offence.
So once you don't hear anyone else, you leave the stall and walk towards your post.
Now that everything is back to normal you sit down back on your console.
You do a quick inspection and check everything is in order before the show really starts.
You hear the door opening behind you and see the Director Olga Marie take her post among the lots of you, faceless workers, for her well oiled machine to finally start spinning.
You ignore whatever self aggrandizing speech she is trying to deliver with the ease of long practice and you start working on the status of the coffins located in the room under your.
As the master candidates take their posts and start filling them you let yourself relax.
Everything is going as planned.

Some people are nervous but there is nothing be worried about.

You hear the door open and close behind you.

There are no errors.

You hear someone's footsteps coming closer.

There are no complications.

A chair close by is taken by a familiar figure and you roll your eyes.

Everything is going well.

Then you hear a muffled *click* from one of the stations behind you.

For an instant, you manage to see the room being filled with hell fire.
Then you feel the force behind it exploding all around you.

You can feel your body alongside your coworkers being pulled and pushed inside the locked room.

You feel your world go from Red to White and finally to Black as the ringing in your ears finally dies down.

And as your consciousness leaves you.
Before you can formulate a coherent thought.
Before you manage to understand what's happening around you.
Some part of you manages to come to a conclusion of what's next.
And so you close your eyes for the last time.
And You Die.