At one in the morning, the general manager posted the project assignments in the group chat and tagged everyone.

I reviewed my responsibilities carefully, going through each detail to make sure I understood exactly what was expected of me.

When I was done, I typed a simple "OK" and hit send.

Two seconds later, my phone rang.

It was him.

As soon as I answered, his voice came through, icy and sharp, filled with unmistakable disgust.

"Eric, I'm very disappointed in you. I must have been blind to trust you with anything important."

My mind went completely blank.

"What… what do you mean?" I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

What he said next was something I never could have imagined.

"Eric, you're fired. Don't come in tomorrow."

Click. The line went dead.

Just like that, it was over.

He was the one who brought me into this industry. He trusted me more than anyone else, and I had always stood by his side as his right hand.

Just this morning, in front of the whole company, he said I would be getting a promotion and a raise next month.

So how did I get fired out of nowhere?

My mind went completely blank. I thought maybe I had sent something wrong by accident.

I opened my chat history and read through it again and again. I even tapped on my own reply, that simple "OK," and zoomed in on it like I might find some hidden mistake.

However, there was nothing. Could it be my recent work performance? I wondered, a knot forming in my chest.

I quickly opened my supervisor's chat, ready to ask what was going on.

A red exclamation mark popped up on the screen. [You have been blocked.] My heartbeat sped up, and panic began creeping in as I tried messaging other coworkers in my department, only to find that every single one of them had blocked me too.

More than thirty coworkers I saw every single day had all blocked me overnight.

I sank into my chair, stunned, my palms icy and damp with sweat.

I had not slept all night, but in that moment, none of it seemed to matter anymore. As soon as the sky started to brighten, I rushed to the office.

The receptionist froze the moment she saw me, her smile stiffening as she quickly grabbed her walkie-talkie, murmured something into it, then hurried over to stop me. Her tone turned sharp. "Eric, HR just sent out a notice. You've been terminated. You're not allowed inside."

"I need to see Mr. Lowell! I have to ask him what's going on!" I stepped forward, but before I could even reach the lobby, a security guard blocked my way.

The receptionist looked at me like I was something disgusting, like trash. "Mr. Lowell said he doesn't want to see you again."

I waited downstairs until nine, watching my coworkers arrive one after another.

My supervisor walked in front. When he saw me, his eyes flickered away, like he was avoiding something dirty. The others glanced back at me too, but the usual friendliness was gone.

All I saw was caution. Distance.

"Why!" I could not hold it in anymore. I shook off the guard and rushed forward, shouting. However, I was quickly dragged back and thrown out, clumsy and humiliated.

I dragged my exhausted body home.

In our new apartment, my fiancée, Yoana Lynch, stood in the middle of the living room, carefully arranging wedding decorations for next week. When she saw me, she smiled and walked over.

"Why are you back so early? Aren't you working today?"

All the frustration and confusion I had been holding in all night finally burst out. I told her everything, from start to finish. My voice was tight with anger. "Babe, I only replied 'OK,' and Mr. Lowell suddenly fired me. Everyone blocked me.

"Do you think this is workplace bullying? Are they trying to keep my performance bonus for themselves?"

Yoana's brows pulled together immediately. She took my hand, her voice calm and steady. "Don't worry. I'm a lawyer. What they did has crossed a line. We'll start with a formal complaint. If that doesn't work, I'll make them explain everything in court."

She led me to the couch and made me sit down, her expression serious. "Tell me exactly what was said in the group chat.

"And how you replied. Don't leave out a single detail."

I repeated everything word for word, then opened my phone and showed her the chat history.

I pointed at that one message. "See? It's really just this. I have no idea what I did wrong."

Yoana's eyes dropped to the screen, her pupils shrinking as her face drained of color in an instant.

She shot to her feet, grabbed the cup of still steaming coffee from the table, and threw it straight at my face.

"Don't come near me!" Her voice was full of disgust. "I can't believe you're this kind of trash. And I was going to marry you? You don't deserve it!"

I froze, completely stunned by her reaction. "Yoana, what's wrong with you? What did I even do?

"It was just an 'OK.' How can you say that about me?"

"What do you mean, what's going on?" Yoana frowned, snatched my phone, and opened the chat with the wedding planner. "I'm canceling the wedding right now." Her voice was ice cold. "Marry someone like you? It makes me sick."

She turned and pointed at the door. "Get out. From now on, we're done. Don't ever contact me again."

I tried to grab her, to ask what the hell was happening, but she jerked away in anger. The coldness in her eyes made my whole body tense up.

She did not say another word. Instead, she walked to the wall and started tearing down the wedding decorations one by one, letting the flowers and ribbons fall to the floor.

By the time I came back to my senses, my luggage had already been thrown out to the doorway.

"Get out! If you don't leave, I'm calling the police!"

It was not until I was kicked out of my own home that it really hit me.

Because of a single "OK," I had lost both my career and my relationship. I fell into a deep depression.

I rented the cheapest tiny room I could find in a rundown part of the city, shut myself inside, and spent two days without eating or drinking.

On the morning of the third day, the door was kicked open.

My landlord barged in with two burly men. He pointed straight at me, his voice icy and forceful. "Pack your things and get out. Now," he said. "I'm not letting you stay here anymore. If you don't leave, I'll call the police."

"What did I do? I paid the rent!" I struggled to my feet, weak but furious, glaring at him.

"So what if you paid?" The landlord grabbed my luggage and threw it out the door.

"Have you seen what people are saying about you online? The whole neighborhood knows I rented this place to you. The neighbors are complaining, saying you're ruining the reputation of the area!

"If you don't get out right now, I won't be so polite!"

I stood there, stunned. Then I hurriedly pulled out my phone and opened social media.

I was instantly flooded.

Someone had taken screenshots of my messages in the company group chat and posted them online.

The title read: [Shocking! Employee Fired After Replying 'OK' Late at Night.]

The comments had already exploded.

[People like this deserve to be fired. Good thing the supervisor acted fast or he'd poison the whole company.]

[Expose his name and address. Let him be socially dead!]

What made it even worse was that someone had dug up my personal information, from my name and address to my ID number, even photos from my school days, all of it posted online for people to mock.

[He even graduated from Cromwell University? What a disgrace to his alma mater.]

[He looks normal, but he's actually disgusting.]

[Blacklist him from the whole industry. Don't let him ever find a job again.]

My phone started blowing up with calls from unknown numbers.

Every time I answered, it was nothing but insults and threats.

"Eric, you piece of trash, go die!"

"People like you are a waste of air. Get out of this city!"

I tried to explain, leaving comments under the original post and trying to tell my side of the story, but the moment I posted anything, it was buried under a flood of abuse. When I tried to write out everything that had happened, it only made things worse.

[Still trying to clear your name? Shameless.]

[Ban him permanently. He's a disgrace.]

[Feel bad for Mr. Lowell. Feel bad for his fiancée. How did they end up with someone like this?]

Someone even edited a fake memorial photo of me, with the caption:

[Those who send 'OK' deserve to die.]

It spread through every social group like wildfire.

I became a walking example of "social death," and no matter where I went, people recognized me. When I tried to buy a bottle of water at a convenience store, the owner took one look at me and immediately drove me out.

"Not selling to you! People like you will dirty my shop!"

On the street, strangers avoided me like I carried a disease. They pointed, whispered, stared.

One time, a random man suddenly rushed up and punched me straight in the face.

"I'll beat you to death, you piece of trash!"

I crouched on the ground, clutching my head as blood ran from my nose down past my lips.

Despair filled my chest.

What did I even do wrong? I kept asking myself.

It was just two letters. How did that turn me into some unforgivable criminal?

Then I suddenly remembered something a friend once mentioned.

There was an underground therapist out in the suburbs. Someone who specialized in handling… strange cases.

With nowhere else to go, I took the few hundred dollars I had left and followed the address my friend had given me.

The place was tucked away in a remote corner on the outskirts, small and bare, with nothing inside but a single table and two chairs.

The therapist was a middle-aged man with sharp eyes that felt like they could see straight through me.

I sat across from him and told him everything.

From being tagged late at night by my supervisor, to replying "OK" and getting fired.

From being abandoned by my fiancée, to being attacked online, to getting kicked out by my landlord.

I spoke through tears, my voice breaking more than once, on the edge of collapse.

The man, Draven Charlton, listened quietly the whole time without interrupting me. Only after I finished did he slowly slide a blank sheet of paper and a pen toward me.

"Write the word 'OK.'"

My hand trembled as I picked up the pen.

On the paper, I wrote the two letters that had destroyed everything, then handed it back to him, hoping, almost begging, for an answer, one that could somehow save me.

Draven stared at the letters as his expression slowly turned serious, his brows drawing tighter and tighter together while his fingers tapped lightly against the edge of the table in restless rhythm.

The air in the room grew heavy, almost suffocating. He stayed silent for a full five minutes.

Then suddenly, he grabbed a pair of scissors from the table and pointed them at me.

"Get out. Right now. If you don't, I can't guarantee your safety."

"Mr. Charlton, please tell me what's going on! I really don't know what I did wrong!" I cried, stepping forward.

"Don't come any closer!" Draven's hand was shaking. The tip of the scissors was aimed straight at me, his eyes filled with fear and caution. "Wherever you go, you'll only bring disaster… Leave. Now. And don't ever come back!"

I refused to give up. I tried to press him for answers. However, Draven suddenly stood up and shoved me toward the door.

"Go! If you don't leave, I'll kill you!"

I was pushed outside and the door slammed shut behind me. I pressed myself against it, hearing his rapid, panicked breathing from the other side, as if I were some kind of monster.

With nowhere left to go, I fled back to my hometown, thousands of miles away, to that small, isolated town where my family lived, my last refuge.

After more than ten hours on a long-distance bus, followed by another two-hour ride, I finally reached the entrance to the town.

From a distance, I saw them waiting for me, Old Bruce, the town's mayor, along with my parents, all of them smiling.

"Eric, you're back. That's all that matters." My mother hurried over and grabbed my hands.

Her eyes were red as she gently touched my face again and again. "You've lost weight. Why are you so thin? Did something happen out there? Did someone treat you badly?"

My father patted my shoulder. A man of few words, he kept repeating the same line. "It's good you're back. You'll always have food here."

My younger brother, Marvin Johnson came over with a grin and took my luggage. "Long trip, huh? Mom made your favorite meatloaf."