After what felt like hours of running through endless alleys and streets, Kael's body finally gave out.
He slipped on the wet concrete, crashing hard onto the pavement, the jerry can skidding from his hand and slamming against a wall. Before he could even get up, heavy boots pounded toward him.
Rough hands grabbed him, slamming him face-first onto the ground.
"Got him!" one of the officers barked.
Kael struggled, desperate, but it was no use. He twisted his neck just in time to catch a glimpse of a sleek, black car parked down the street.
The window on the passenger side rolled down.
Lucian sat there, smirking, not a hint of guilt on his face.
Their eyes locked — Kael's wide with betrayal, Lucian's cool and unbothered.
Slowly, mockingly, Lucian rolled the window back up.
The car peeled away, disappearing into the stormy night.
"Lucian!!!" Kael screamed, his voice raw with rage and despair.
Before he could even curse again, a crackling sound filled his ears — and then a searing pain exploded across his body as a Taser hit him square in the back.
His muscles seized violently, and darkness swallowed him whole.
Later that day...
A sharp splash of ice-cold water jerked Kael back into consciousness.
He gasped, coughing hard, blinking rapidly against the harsh fluorescent light.
He was seated on a hard metal stool, wrists shackled to a table inside a cold, windowless interrogation room. His clothes clung to him, soaked and freezing.
Two men stood in front of him, neither bothering to hide their amusement. One twirled a baton lazily in his hand.
"Rise and shine, criminal," one of them said with a sneer.
Kael's head pounded as he tried to speak. "I... I wasn't alone," he croaked out. "There were others. You have to believe me."
The officers looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
"Sure, kid. Sure. Let me guess, it was Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too?" the baton-wielding one mocked.
Kael gritted his teeth. "I'm telling you the truth! There were others—Lucian, Amara, all of them!"
His desperation was met with another round of cruel laughter.
Then the baton slammed into his side, knocking the breath out of him.
"Confess," the other officer said coldly. "Confess and maybe we'll go easy on you."
Kael slumped forward, panting heavily. His wrists ached from the cuffs, the metal cutting into his skin.
'That fuck Lucian definitely paid these jerks,' he thought bitterly, tasting blood in his mouth.
Every accusation, every plea he made was met with more mockery, more hits. They didn't want the truth. They wanted a scapegoat.
And Kael realized, with a sickening, hollow ache in his chest — he had been left behind to rot.
He was the sacrifice.
Weeks later, Travis stood stiffly in front of the jury, his future slipping through his fingers like sand in a storm.
The courtroom was a sterile, cold cavern, its walls painted in neutral tones that somehow made the judgment feel even harsher. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above him, casting a sickly pallor over the sea of indifferent faces that stared back — the jury, the audience, even his own lawyer, who looked defeated long before the verdict was spoken.
Travis barely heard the charges as they were read aloud again, each word another nail hammered into his coffin.
Wire fraud — 20 years.
Security fraud — 25 years.
Money laundering — 20 years.
Conspiracy — 5 years.
The numbers blurred together in his mind, a math problem he couldn't solve, each one a death sentence layered over the next.
Just like that, Kael — the boy he used to be — ceased to exist.
His name, his life, everything he once dreamed of... reduced to a hollow inmate number, swallowed by the cold, pitiless machine of the justice system.
No bail. No appeals. No hope.
The courtroom emptied slowly, the buzz of conversation fading away until he was left shackled, alone, under the unflinching gaze of a tired guard.
The world moved on without him.
And Travis — or whoever he was now — was left behind to rot.
Years blurred past like an endless smear of gray days and darker nights.
Now twenty-five, Travis sat in the dimly lit TV room of the prison, his body hardened by time, his spirit carved into something sharp and unrecognizable. The boy who once dreamed, who once believed in second chances, was gone.
The anger, though — that stayed.
It simmered quietly beneath his skin, like embers waiting for the right gust of wind to ignite into an inferno.
He stared blankly at the battered television screen as the latest news anchor grinned and announced the segment:
"The eight youngest entrepreneurs making waves on Forbes! Can you believe it? All once college mates — proof that success is about choosing the right people to trust!"
Travis's jaw tightened as he watched the screen flash photo after photo — Lucian. Amara. The rest of them, all laughing, all free.
Multi Millionaires. Celebrities. Innovators.
' And me, ' he thought bitterly, ' a ghost buried alive in this hellhole.'
Without a word, he shoved his chair back with a violent screech, ignoring the curious glances thrown his way.
The hallway outside was colder, quieter.
He stormed down it, his boots echoing on the cracked tile, until he reached the small, grime-stained bathroom tucked in the far corner.
Locking himself in a stall, Travis slumped onto the cold metal toilet seat, legs stretched out, staring blankly up at the peeling paint on the ceiling.
'At least my parents are free,' he thought hollowly, 'living without the shame of my fines, my name.'
That bitter consolation was all he had left.
Suddenly, a soft whisper coiled around his ear, almost seductive in its gentleness.
"You seem sad. I can fix that."
Travis jerked upright, his heart lurching in his chest. But there was no one there.
Before he could process it, the world around him twisted — the cold stall, the stench of bleach and despair, the humming pipes — all of it blurred and melted away into nothingness.
His body went slack. His consciousness slipped like sand through a broken hourglass.
When Travis opened his eyes again, he was nowhere.
He floated weightlessly in a vast, empty expanse, surrounded by endless black. No walls. No ground. No sky. Just an infinite nothing, stretching out forever.
Panic clawed at his chest as he kicked his legs, moved his arms, but nothing changed. Gravity had abandoned him.
Then, like a blade slicing through the darkness, a figure appeared.
A woman.
She stood effortlessly, her form radiant against the void. She wasn't human — not exactly — but there was something familiar in the curve of her smile, the way her eyes shimmered with playful, dangerous intelligence.
She was beautiful, in an unearthly way that made his skin prickle.
She regarded him warmly, almost affectionately.
"You look like the perfect person to make my life fun," she said, her voice melodic, almost teasing.
Travis stared, his mind struggling to catch up.
"Um... sorry??" he blurted, still floating helplessly.
The woman laughed, a soft, tinkling sound that seemed to vibrate through the emptiness.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce myself," she said, her voice dripping with mirth. "My name is Mariana. And I'm a Goddess."
Travis gawked at her, suspicion and disbelief warring inside him.
' Goddess? No way. This is some kind of dream, right? A hallucination?' He thought.
Yet, a small, irrational part of him — the part that still remembered cartoons, anime, half-forgotten myths — whispered: What if it's real?
"Am I dead?" he croaked, feeling foolish even asking.
Mariana's smile widened, her gaze softening.
"No, dear," she said sweetly. "But think of yourself as... reborn. After I give you my power, that is."
Travis's heart thudded painfully.
"Reborn?" he echoed, his voice faint. "What... what power?"
Mariana tilted her head, her hair shimmering like a liquid moonbeam.
"I'll tell you when you wake up," she said, her voice playful yet laced with promise.
Before Travis could ask anything else, the world blurred once again.
The sensation of falling slammed into him — weightless, helpless, spiraling into darkness.
And then—Silence, Oblivion.
TO BE CONTINUED