All That We Carried

The boardroom was suffocating. No one dared to move, not with Sylus sitting at the head of the table — jaw locked, shoulders tense, eyes fixed on the report projected across the wall. The numbers glowed in red. The kind of red that made stomachs twist. “We lost twelve million dollars in a single quarter,” he said, his voice low but shaking with restrained fury. “Twelve. Million.” The words didn’t sound like anger — they sounded like disbelief, as if saying the number out loud might make it less real. His tone dropped lower with every word, like a fuse burning down to the powder. “And not one of you thought that was worth mentioning until now?” A few chairs creaked. Someone cleared their throat and immediately regretted it. Arie sat beside him, pen hovering uselessly over her notebook. She could feel the tension in the air pressing against her ribs, her breath caught halfway. The air felt too thick to breathe, the hum of the projector loud enough to make her pulse echo in her ears. She’d seen Sylus angry before — but not like this. Not this kind of fury that trembled just beneath control. A junior manager tried to speak. “Sir, the marketing push—” “Don’t,” Sylus snapped, cutting him off. His voice cracked like thunder, echoing through the room. “Don’t blame marketing. Don’t blame projections. Don’t blame the economy.” He slammed his palm against the table so hard that a few papers fluttered off the edge. “You had one job — one — to manage what was given, not burn it!” For a heartbeat, Sylus’s hand stayed pressed to the table — his fingers trembling before he snatched them back, as if he’d only just realized he’d lost control. Everyone flinched. The sound of his voice filled every corner of the room. Kevin, seated near the end of the table, shifted slightly — the only one who didn’t look terrified. He’d seen this before: the moment when Sylus stopped caring about diplomacy and started tearing through people. Sylus’s breathing was harsh now, his composure slipping. “Do you have any idea what that kind of loss looks like to investors? To the board?” His voice rose again, raw and sharp. “We’ve spent years building this company’s reputation, and now one quarter — one quarter — makes us look like amateurs!” No one answered. The silence that followed was unbearable. Even the hum of the air conditioner seemed too loud. He stared at the table for a long, trembling moment, then pushed his chair back with a sharp scrape. “Fix it,” he said finally. “I don’t care how. Just fix it.” When he turned away, the reflection in the glass wall caught his face — pale beneath the fury, jaw tight, eyes somewhere far past the boardroom. He stormed out, the door slamming so hard the glass panels shuddered. For several seconds, no one breathed. Then, slowly, Arie lowered her pen, staring at the empty doorway. Her hand was shaking. Around her, the department heads sat pale and silent, each of them realizing the same thing — if the company didn’t recover soon, Sylus wouldn’t be the only one losing control. Arie exhaled slowly, her hand still trembling around her pen. She’d seen the way his reflection looked in the glass — not angry, not ruthless, just… afraid. And that, somehow, unsettled her most of all.