The Plot Calls #14 : "The Throne Awaits"
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Reed Halston didn’t lust for wealth. He lusted for title.
The kind that came with podiums, front-page quotes, and doors that opened at a whisper. “State Senator Halston” sounded right. It rolled with weight. It implied order—deference.
Not influence. Obedience.
He shook hands like he was already elected. Spoke like a man used to being recorded. But the cameras weren’t rolling.
His campaign stalled. He wasn’t grabbing headlines like his rival, Lila Vane. No donors. No buzz. No momentum.
Reed spent mornings pacing in his downtown office, tailored suits worn for no one, drafting speeches no one heard. His assistant quit two months ago. He hadn’t replaced her.
He blamed the city. He blamed the news cycle. He blamed the public’s attention span.
But the truth? He wasn’t chosen.
Reed Halston didn’t just want to lead—he wanted to be needed. The way old laws are. Undisputed. Institutional. Automatic.
Instead, he was optional.
“If Lila claims the seat, I’ll never be Senator,” he muttered, anxious and hungry.
Then came the whisper.
It had no voice. Only pressure. Like a breath curling behind his thoughts.
It started behind city hall—after a night of answering no emails and losing imaginary debates. He stood smoking beneath a failing streetlight when the air thickened.
No breeze. No sound. Just that strange pull behind the ears. Reed knew: if he didn’t follow, the call would vanish.
“I’ll have my title if it’s the last thing I do.”
The cigarette burned untouched.
He moved—drawn toward the alley behind the maintenance gate. The concrete warped. The grass grew sideways. Shadows bent wrong.
And then… the soil.
Black. Violet. Shimmering. Breathing.
At its center, the porcelain hand. Open. Upturned. Expectant. Hungry.
Reed knelt. Unbuttoned his blazer.
From his inner pocket, he pulled a small, leather-bound constitution— his symbol. His gospel. The object he clutched at debates, town halls, pretend press conferences.
It wasn’t just paper. It was identity. Desire. Illusion.
He knew who he was. A man like Thaddeus. Like Thance. An echo in a long line of hollow reachers.
He could’ve resisted. But he didn’t.
He gazed into the porcelain palm. Thought of power. Status. Obedience disguised as respect.
Then, he smiled.
He placed the constitution into the hand. It sank.
A pact, sealed.
The shimmer pulsed. The ground exhaled. The hand disappeared beneath the plot.
Reed stood. The whisper faded. Somewhere beneath fractured geometry, something fed.
“The Plot called. I answered,” he thought. “Now I just have to wait.”
The next morning, the flood began.
The flood came fast.
Three missed calls from the former governor. Two from PACs that previously ghosted him. A new email with the subject: “Halston: The State Needs You.”
Donations surged. Volunteers appeared. A national columnist wrote: “Meet the Candidate Who Never Stopped Believing.”
Reed stared at the screen, stunned. Then smug. He straightened his tie. Puffed his chest. Practiced his smile.
By noon, he’d been invited to speak at a summit. By evening, his campaign had raised more in 24 hours than the last three months combined. By morning, he was in a car headed to the Capitol.
The headlines followed. “Halston Rising” “New Blood for a New State” “Lila Who?”
His name pulsed through the feeds, the stations, the mailers. His face became the symbol of a return to “principled leadership.”
But the principles weren’t his.
Each bill he sponsored, each policy he backed, came pre-written—sealed in manila folders passed to him at fundraisers, slipped under doors, handed over in silken briefings.
He didn’t read them. Didn’t question them.
He signed. Smiled. Stepped behind podiums and told the public what he was told to say.
And the soil shimmered brighter with every signature.
The changes started subtly.
New tax breaks for megadevelopers. Environmental reviews waived in rural zones. A zoning “correction” that bulldozed three community clinics.
When confronted, Reed’s aides deflected. “This is strategic,” they said. “Smart growth,” they insisted. “It’s complicated,” they repeated.
But for those affected—those without clean water, without transit, without recourse—complicated didn’t matter.
A little boy from Oakmere Elementary mailed him a crayon drawing: A stick figure with a crooked tie and the caption: “My friend Senator Halston.”
Reed laughed. Then tossed it in a drawer.
A week later, the school shut down. The land? Quietly rezoned for “data storage infrastructure.”
He didn't ask who owned the company. Didn’t care.
He had momentum now. He was being talked about.
And yet—The shimmer behind City Hall never faded. Each time he passed, the alley seemed to breathe.
He began feeding the soil regularly.
A campaign pin. A town hall photo. A letter from his father—one he hadn’t opened since the funeral.
The plot consumed it all. And still, it hungered.
Soon, he found himself watching videos of his own speeches. Rehearsing mannerisms. Memorizing himself. Trying to remember where the performance ended and he began.
His reflection grew unfamiliar.
He adjusted the brightness on his phone. Changed the lighting in his office.
Nothing helped.
Then, late one night, the voice returned. Not the one beneath. The one within.
Quiet at first. Just a question:
“Why?”
Why had he signed the toxic runoff bill? Why did he smile through interviews about budget cuts he didn’t write?
“Why do you want to be senator?” it asked again.
He ignored it. For a while.
But it grew louder. Persistent.
He began chewing the inside of his mouth. Gripping pens until they snapped. He dreamed of podiums catching fire, of microphones whispering secrets he never told.
The whisper within and the hunger beneath began to blend.
One asked questions. The other demanded offerings.
Both were always there.
And still, Reed kept climbing. Kept smiling. Kept sinking.
The praise lasted longer than it should have.
Reed coasted on momentum, the darling of late-night panels and morning radio. His policies wrecked towns, but his poll numbers climbed. His face became a brand: “Halston Means Action.”
He believed it.
Until the donors stopped calling.
Until the news cycle pivoted.
Until a redistricting bill—one he never read—eliminated his seat.
At the press conference, his party’s new darling took center stage. Lila Vane.
She smiled. Quoted one of Reed’s own slogans. The audience erupted.
Reed watched from the wings.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. He just… left.
Back in his office, he packed nothing. Left his badge on the desk. Slid the small constitution back into its drawer.
He walked.
Past the empty offices. Past the marble pillars. Into the alley behind City Hall.
The plot shimmered—waiting.
No hand reached for him. No whisper spoke.
It didn’t need to.
Reed knelt, suit immaculate, eyes vacant. From his pocket, he pulled the crayon drawing. The boy who once believed in him—his “friend.”
He placed it into the soil. It vanished. He stood in silence.
Then, opened his yearbook. Ripped out the page with his photo—his 17-year-old self, beaming beneath the caption: “Most Likely to Lead.”
He fed it to the soil too.
The porcelain hand never appeared.
There was nothing left to offer.
No one saw Reed after that.
The Capitol moved on.
The headlines shifted. The state changed hands.
But if you passed City Hall at night, beneath the faulty streetlight, you might catch a glimpse—
A figure, pale and motionless, kneeling in the alley.
No podium. No title. No hunger.
An Idle Man now.
Still. Hollow. Forgotten.
And if you dared to listen, if the wind was right, you might hear him whisper—
“The throne was hollow. The price was permanence. The Plot Thickens.”
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