Have you ever imagined what it feels like to watch your entire future evaporate in the span of fifteen minutes? That is precisely the nightmare Felicia Carter found herself living at exactly 9:47 PM on Christmas Eve. The sprawling Northwell Manufacturing building was practically a ghost town that night, its rows of empty cubicles bathed in the low, electric hum of fluorescent lights. While the rest of the world had clocked out hours ago, rushing home to wrap presents and share warm dinners with loved ones, Felicia remained behind.
Her manager, Karen Holloway, had framed it as a quick formality. Just a brief end-of-year sync, she had promised. But as Felicia sat across the polished mahogany table in the small conference room, the atmosphere felt nothing like a holiday. Karen sat with terrifying poise, her manicured fingernails rhythmically tapping against a leather portfolio. Behind her, the window displayed a swirl of falling snow that should have looked enchanting. Instead, to Felicia, it looked impossibly cold and distant, like viewing a life she was no longer qualified to live through a sheet of impenetrable glass.
— You have violated our internal reporting procedures, — Karen announced. Her voice carried the smooth, practiced flatness of a script she had rehearsed to perfection.
Felicia felt her throat constrict, panic rising in her chest.
— But I only sent the report to you, — she stammered, her voice trembling. — I sent it three weeks ago, exactly as you instructed me to.
Karen’s lips curled into a smile that didn’t contain a shred of warmth.
— And I improved it, — she replied coolly. — That efficiency model you created? It doesn’t need your name attached to it anymore.
With a dismissive flick of her wrist, Karen slid a single sheet of paper across the table. It was a termination notice.
— You have fifteen minutes to clear your desk, — Karen said, checking her watch. — There will be no severance package. Your health insurance coverage terminates at midnight tonight.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. Felicia’s mind instantly raced to her small apartment, where her mother was likely sleeping. She thought of the pill organizer on the nightstand, filled with the expensive cardiac medications that kept her mother’s damaged heart beating. She thought of the specialists, the treatments, and the terrifying reality that the insurance covering it all was about to vanish on Christmas Eve.
As Felicia walked the length of the factory floor for the final time, clutching a cardboard box of meager belongings, Mr. Henry Collins looked up from the security desk. The elderly night guard had been a fixture at Northwell for twenty-three years, a silent observer from the shadows whom most people treated as part of the furniture. He didn’t ask her what had happened. Somehow, looking at her face, he already knew.
— The scariest thing isn’t losing your job on Christmas, — he said softly, his voice rough with age. His weathered hands rested on a logbook that appeared unusually thick and worn. — It is having your value erased while everyone pretends they didn’t see it happen.
Felicia paused at the glass doors, the snow already melting on her slumped shoulders. She looked back at him and saw something flicker in his eyes. It wasn’t pity. It was something deeper, something ancient. He looked like a man who had been keeping a very careful count for a very long time.
What Felicia didn’t know then was that her stolen work was on the verge of securing a contract worth $200 million. She also couldn’t have known that the CEO reviewing that very contract was about to notice something impossible.
Felicia didn’t cry on the bus ride home. Tears were a luxury she couldn’t afford; they required time she didn’t have and energy she needed to conserve. She had alarms to set—three of them—for just four hours from now. By 5:30 AM the morning after Christmas, she was already standing in the back of Morrison’s Bakery, her flour-dusted fingers moving through the mechanical, rhythmic motions of kneading dough while her mind churned through terrifying math.
Rent was due in six days. Her mother’s cardiology appointment was in nine. The prescription refill couldn’t wait past Thursday.
— You are quieter than usual today, — Mrs. Morrison observed, sliding a heavy tray of croissants into the industrial oven. — Even for you, Felicia.
Felicia managed a weak expression that might have passed for a smile. She had been working at this bakery since she was sixteen, back when being the shy girl felt like a safe haven rather than a curse. Mrs. Morrison had shown her kindness then, and she was showing it now. But kindness didn’t pay for cardiac medications that cost $847 every two weeks.
— Just tired, — Felicia murmured, focusing intently on the dough. The truth felt too heavy to verbalize.
Her day was far from over. The café shift started promptly at two o’clock. It meant six grinding hours of taking complicated coffee orders and feigning cheerfulness, watching happy couples share holiday desserts while she mentally calculated exactly how many tips she needed to keep the lights on.
By the time she dragged herself through her front door at half-past nine, her mother was settled in her armchair. The television cast a flickering blue light over the medication bottles lining the side table like a miniature pharmacy.
— You work too hard, sweetheart, — Linda Carter said. It was the same gentle phrase she had repeated for months, heavy with the guilt of a parent who understood exactly why her daughter was juggling three jobs.
— I’m fine, Mom, — Felicia said, kissing her mother’s forehead. She could feel the paper-thin quality of Linda’s skin, a warmth that seemed to grow more fragile with each passing week.
— I just need you not to give up, — Linda said, catching her daughter’s hand with surprising strength. — You are the one I’m worried about.
But Felicia was already moving toward her laptop, opening a freelance data analysis platform where she took contracts under a username that carefully obscured her identity. Tonight’s assignment was supply chain optimization for a textile manufacturer. It was straightforward work, the kind she could do half-asleep, and it paid $200 if she finished before dawn.
