Knock, knock.


"Delivery. Sign here."


Max Mason took the cardboard box, staring at it with a confused frown. Had he blacked out and gone on another online shopping spree? Unlikely. His bank account balance was currently less 'Fortune 500' and more 'Please Don't Starve.'


Maybe it was another "care package" from his mom—which usually meant socks and expired coupons.


Riiip. Max keyed through the packing tape. He peered inside and froze.


It was a book. A thin, unassuming paperback with a stark black-and-white cover. But the title made his blood run cold.


The Tragic Life of Max Mason.


Max blinked. He read it again. M-A-S-O-N. Spelled perfectly.


A vein popped on his forehead. Who did this?


Tragic Life? Tragic my butt.


Was this Sam's idea of a prank? No, that guy could barely spell 'tragic'. And there were details here Sam didn't know. So, who did he tick off?


Fighting the urge to spike the book like a football, Max flipped it open.


The author photo was the first slap in the face. It was a guy in a hospital gown, looking like a ghost who'd given up on haunting. The scary part? It looked exactly like Max—just forty years older and completely broken.


Max's eye twitched. "Wow," he muttered. "Someone spent good money on Photoshop. That's not a budget filter."


Summoning all twenty-four years of his patience, he started reading the biography.


Once, my dream was to be a Police Officer. I achieved half the dream. I ended up working in an office.


Then, my dream was to make millions and marry a hot professor. Instead, I made ten grand a year, and the hot professor married a guy who definitely wasn't me.


I realized I needed to be practical. I needed to join the Fortune 500! ... I succeeded! I joined Horizon Life Insurance... as a door-to-door salesman.


Finally, I listened to Tony, who said money must work for you. I borrowed from everyone I knew, maxed out my credit cards, and became a shareholder in Horizon Oil... right before the Crash of '18. I lost everything overnight.


My retired parents bailed me out, draining their life savings. They aged ten years in a single day.


Broken by society, I gave up on dreams. I decided to settle down. Then, I met her. An angel.


It was like a rom-com. We met during a storm. The hotel had only one room left... I thought it was destiny. We married the next day. I still remember someone giving me a pitying look, telling me to check my shoelaces—probably so I wouldn't see the trap I was walking into.


At the end of the year, our son was born. 'Premature,' the doctor said, despite the kid being a bouncing eight-pounder with Type B blood.


Even the pandemic the following year couldn't ruin my ignorance.


It took eighteen years and a car accident for me to see the medical records. The blood transfusion proved it. The kid wasn't mine.


I thought true love could move mountains. Turns out, I only moved myself... right off a cliff. I drank until my stomach gave out. Late-stage cancer. My parents died of heartbreak before I did. Alone and hopeless, I pulled the plug on my own oxygen.


This book is a memorial to a life that was nothing but a tragedy.


Max stood there, silent as a statue, gripping the book until his knuckles turned white. His expression slowly twisted from confusion to pure rage.


He slammed the book onto the floor.


It wasn't enough. He stomped on it, grinding his heel into the cover.


"If I find out who wrote this," Max snarled at the empty room, "I'm going to make their life a horror movie!"


Liver throbbing with anger, he collapsed onto the sofa and downed a glass of cold water, trying to put out the fire in his chest.


As the adrenaline faded, a creeping thought took over. Who hated him this much? And why was the writing actually... good?


Seriously, the prose was Pulitzer-worthy. He'd almost cried reading about his own pathetic demise.


But why spend so much money just to troll him?


"What's the grudge?" Max wondered aloud, staring at the crumpled book. "Did I eat your lunch? Did I kick your puppy? Who does this?"


Was this about revenge? Had he murdered someone's father? Stolen someone's wife? ...Wait. Hold on. Considering he was still a total virgin—the wife-stealing part was definitely off the table.


Maybe it was that vendor he gave a one-star review to on Yelp last month? But there was no way a disgruntled shop owner would know his blood type, right?


Revenge from an ex-girlfriend? Oh, wait. He didn't have any exes. Crisis averted.


Max sat there for what felt like an eternity, mentally scrolling through a list of everyone he had offended recently. He couldn't find a single viable suspect. The more he thought about it, the weirder it got.


Forcing himself to calm down, he picked up the dusty book again, frowning as he scanned the pages. He grabbed a pen and paper and started listing the facts.


Childhood dream: Police Officer.


Secret crush: The Hot Professor.


Current job: New hire at a Fortune 500 company.


Horoscope: Scorpio.


Max stared at the four circled items, totally shook. The timeline spanned his entire life—from being a toddler to his college years to his current corporate slavery. Who could possibly know him this well?


Unless... this person had been stalking him since preschool?


Was this some legendary "childhood sweetheart" scenario? Did he make some solemn vow over juice boxes that he forgot about, and now she was back for blood? Max racked his brain, but he couldn't recall setting any "I'll marry you when we grow up" flags in kindergarten.


And even if he had, the crush on the hot professor was top-secret intel. Classified. He hadn't even told his best friend, Sam, about that because it was too embarrassing. Yet this person knew.


A childhood sweetheart theory didn't cover that.


Desperate, Max grabbed his phone and dialed.


"Hey, Dad."


"Son! What's up?" The background noise was a chaotic symphony of clattering poker chips. "crash, rattle~"


"Quick question. What was my dream when I was a kid?"


The noise on the other end paused. After a long, awkward silence, his dad's voice came back, sounding unsure. "Uh... an astronaut?"


"And what's my blood type?" Max pressed.


"...Type O?" The voice was even weaker this time.


Click. Max hung up.


Okay, he could definitely rule out his dad as the suspect.


He buried his face in the sofa cushions, staring blankly at the ceiling. Who was this person?




The next morning, sporting massive dark circles under his eyes that made him look like a raccoon, Max clocked in at the office. Then, without even walking to his desk, he turned around and zombie-walked to the diner down the street.


"Hey boss. One order of pancakes, side of sausages."


Soon, a steaming plate of grease and carbs sat in front of him. Max absently drowned the pancakes in condiments. He took one bite and froze.


Way too much syrup.


"Ugh." He sighed.


He couldn't eat; he couldn't sleep. He'd spent the whole night analyzing the situation and came up with zero answers. It felt like an invisible pair of eyes was watching him from the shadows, knowing his every move, radiating pure malice. It was creeping him out.


"Hey. You look terrible. Something weighing on your mind?"


A voice cut through his gloom. Max looked up to see a guy sitting next to him.


The stranger was in his thirties, sporting a thin mustache, a sharp suit, and shiny leather shoes. He was wearing a Rolex (probably fake), clutching a briefcase, and peering through gold-rimmed glasses. He had that warm, practiced smile that was designed to make you trust him.


He had breakfast in front of him, looking like just another local office drone.


Max forced a polite grin. "It's nothing. Just didn't sleep well."


"Ah... looking at your age, you must be new to the workforce, right? Usually, when guys your age look that stressed, it's either about a girl or a job."


"Mhm," Max grunted, poking at his soggy pancakes. He wasn't in the mood for a heart-to-heart.


But to the stranger—a veteran salesman—Max's dismissive attitude intrigued him.


"I've been there, man. I'm experienced. At your age, I was burning myself out for pennies, and my girlfriend dumped me on top of it. It's the rat race. You make a few thousand a month, pay rent and bills, and what's left? Nothing. In the end, it's all about money. A penny beats a hero, right?"


The suit-guy sounded so sentimental, so empathetic. It was a script he'd used a thousand times, and it had a 100% success rate. Sure enough, Max finally looked up, seemingly hooked.


"I've spent half my life learning this one truth: relying on a dead-end salary to get ahead is impossible. You have to make your money work for you. That's how you stop being a slave to the dollar." The man patted Max's shoulder, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and stood up as if to leave.


The voice from behind stopped him. The salesman smirked, but by the time Max turned around, his face was back to a mask of harmless helpfulness.


"What's up?"


"Say that last part again."


"Which part? Oh! 'Make money work for you so you don't become a slave to money.' Warren Buffett said that. One of the world's richest men. That advice can change your life."


The salesman paused. The kid's expression wasn't what he expected. He looked... weirded out.


Max put down his fork and stared at the man with intense seriousness.


"What is your name?"


Here we go! The salesman thought. Another sale in the bag!


He flashed a dazzling, eight-tooth smile. "You can call me Mr. Graves."


Max let out a long breath. Okay, he was just being paranoid...


"But," the man added, "everyone likes to call me Tony."


Max froze.