Underdeliver

My boss, Kyle Brown, had just processed payroll when Sam Jefferson, the trainee I had been mentoring, tossed me his phone. He said, "Can you hold this for me while I use the bathroom?" I took it without thinking, then froze when I saw the screen. That was because a notification had just popped up: [This month's salary has been deposited. Total: $4,692.00.] I had been with this company for eight years, and I only made one thousand dollars a month. When I was hired, Kyle had told me that we were a startup. As long as I worked hard, I would make big money eventually. But over the years, Kyle had traded in one Mercedes after another while my salary kept shrinking. At present, my savings were less than four thousand dollars. I was close to not being able to afford the medical bills for my younger sister, Eva Rivers, who was very sick and bedridden. Meanwhile, the trainee I was mentoring made close to four thousand seven hundred dollars a month. I stayed quiet for a moment, then turned and asked the employee beside me how much he made. He stammered for a long time and would not answer. I understood it then. I picked up my phone and opened the recruitment message a competitor had sent me a few days earlier.

It all began with a single post about canceling a food delivery order. Overnight, I became the internet's punching bag. Thousands of vicious messages flooded my inbox, filled with photoshopped memorials urging me to die. They doxxed my family, plastered my personal details across shady websites, and used AI to create obscene images of me, spreading them in vile chat groups. They spread lies about my income, claiming it came from illicit sources, and accused me of carrying diseases. I didn't call the police or block the messages. Instead, I read every hateful word before singling out the 100 worst offenders. Every day, I sent each one a luxurious meal: Boston lobster, Australian wagyu, the works. Each delivery came with a simple note: [Thank you for your hard work.]

In a brutal all-male cadet academy where discipline is law and weakness is quietly erased, obedience is not requested—it is engineered. Elias enters the institution for survival. Debt, obligation, and limited options leave him with one rule: endure. He believes discipline is a tool, something external he can master and leave behind once his training is complete. He is wrong. The academy does not simply train bodies—it reshapes awareness. Silence becomes instruction. Proximity becomes pressure. Choice erodes long before it is ever questioned. Elias draws the attention of Instructor Vale, a senior authority figure whose control relies not on punishment, but on restraint. Vale does not command often. He observes. He waits. He allows Elias to adjust himself—until obedience feels voluntary and resistance feels unnatural. As training intensifies, Elias finds himself isolated, refined, and increasingly dependent on the presence that once unsettled him. The line between discipline and desire begins to blur, forcing him to confront a dangerous question: is he being controlled, or is he choosing alignment? In a system designed to strip autonomy while calling it order, Elias must decide whether obedience is something done to him—or something he is willing to claim. Under Orders is a slow-burn psychological MM novel exploring power, conditioning, and the unsettling intimacy of control—where submission is not demanded, but learned.

Five years of marriage, and I was finally pregnant. I couldn't wait to tell Neil—until I heard his mom say: "When are you going to tell Angela? Cece's already showing. This family needs an heir." "Just give me a little more time. I'll handle it." I froze in the doorway, the ultrasound report burning in my pocket. Neil Schmidt, your promises mean nothing.

After Nathan Seville stands me up for the seventh time we're supposed to register our marriage, I finally cut all ties with him—completely and on my own terms. If he shows up at a gathering, I don't go. If he's invited to perform at the college anniversary, I leave early. The moment my company decides to work with him, I resign on the spot. Even on Christmas Eve, when he shows up at my house with gifts, I make up an excuse about needing to visit someone. Calls? Blocked. Socials? Deleted. My strategy is simple—cut it all off. I don't reach out, and he has no way of finding me. For the first 30 years of my life, I spent most of it loving him with everything I had. I cared for him, supported him, and waited for him. But after being left hanging for the seventh time at the City Hall, I finally wake up. I don't want to live like this anymore. Even if I end up alone, it's still better than spending night after night waiting in an empty house that never feels like home!

Late one night after getting off work, I was scrolling through my company group chat when a colleague shared a piece of news. The headline was horrifying. "Night-Shift Courier Murdered During Delivery, Police Suspect Robbery." I zoomed in on the crime scene photo that had been partially pixelated, and a chill ran straight down my spine. Lying in a pool of blood, the courier who had been hacked to death was unmistakably me. I had scrolled into news of my own death. Almost at the same time, my delivery app began vibrating violently. "Urgent pickup! Destination: Unit 704 Hawthorne Ridge Apartments, Building 7. Time limit: 15 minutes. Penalty for timeout: Death." As I stared at the notification that read "Pickup failed three times", the searing pain of my brutal death surged through my body. So that was it. I had already died three times. When I forced open the half-closed security door of 704 for the fourth time, a thin delivery envelope lay quietly inside. I tore it open. A photograph slipped out. It was a picture of my dismembered body. The timestamp showed tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. On the back was a single line written in fresh blood: "Next time, remember to pick it up on time." At that moment, the red indicator light on the hallway surveillance camera suddenly went dark. I looked up. From the ventilation opening in the exact same spot, a single eye was staring straight at me. The mole at the corner of that eye was identical to mine.