A financially desperate, morally mediocre man plans a small-town bank robbery to save his collapsing life, only to collide with a legendary crime lord, his secret lover, and a mythic assassin who isn’t there, until a single, accidental growl turns him into one.
When foreclosure looms, and his marriage corrodes under the weight of disappointment, an ordinary insurance assessor decides to rob the local bank as a last, humiliating act of survival.
On the night of the heist, he walks into an impossible coincidence: the bank has already been robbed by his childhood friend, now a powerful mafia boss, accompanied by the woman he loves. In a moment of frozen terror, the protagonist emits a low, animal growl, mistaken by the criminal mastermind for Kolcho, a legendary assassin who hunts crime empires.
The gang flees, leaving the money behind.
The man escapes, reinvents himself, and lives comfortably ever after, haunted by the knowledge that his salvation came not from courage or intelligence, but from being misidentified as a myth.
This story is part of the From Within the Shadows collection available on Amazon.
AN INVITATION (click the link to play)
You are invited to play.
Not to win.
Not to prove anything.
Just to step inside and see what happens when choices stop pretending they’re moral.
This is a story told in fragments.
Passages and micro-passages.
Moments where silence weighs more than action and where hesitation quietly rewrites lives.
You won’t play a hero.
You won’t save anyone.
You will make decisions that feel small, reasonable, almost invisible. That’s how it works.
Every choice reveals something.
About Johnny.
About Nell. (or Gallia)
About Jimmy Scattanni.
About the lie everyone agrees to live inside.
Some paths lead nowhere.
Some loop back on themselves.
Some end abruptly, without dignity or explanation.
One sound changes everything.
You don’t control it.
You don’t even understand it when it happens.
You will never know the full truth.
No one does.
But you will carry a version of it with you when you leave.
Play if you’re comfortable being mistaken for something you’re not.
Play if you understand that survival is not the same as virtue.
Play if you suspect that myths are just accidents we refuse to correct.
Enter quietly.
Pay attention.
And when you hear the growl,
don’t assume it’s meant for you.
Or, you might want to read more about:
Dark Flash Fiction: Structure, Rhythm & Impact
Atmospheric & Mythic Fiction: An Essential Guide to Liminal Storytelling
Subscribe
The Inner Orbit
We value your trust!
Your address is safe in the vault.
We’ll only use it to send you letters worth opening; no spells, no spam, no secret salesmen.
