Ethan- The Rise Of A Villain Or A Hero?

a silent start

Ethan’s P.O.V.

“Your coffee, bro.” Iris put the coffee mug on the nightstand after telling me in a soft voice, and without looking at me, she walked out of the room.

I sighed and slowly put down the new laptop that I bought yesterday on the bed beside me.

I took the coffee mug from the table and walked out of the room.

It was a modest three-bedroom apartment in a secure society.

Far better and entirely different from the place we have called home since birth.

No broken walls here and there; no shouting, cursing, and people yelling at each other; no smell of gunpowder and blood in the air.

Clean, silent…..too silent that it felt weird and creepy last night with the sound of that ticking wall clock in the living room when the sound echoed.

Everything that happened in the day: gunshots, their deaths, our revival, the system, and then me, killing that man without any hesitation.

Everything was overwhelming, and I needed time to gather myself and process everything.

The system was still a mystery to me, but our lives, this apartment, and the money in my account proved that it was real.

Iris wasn’t in the living room, and Walter was watching the news on TV.

Ever since we came here, Walter and Iris have done everything silently without asking or saying anything to me.

Their silence was filled with fear and questions, but I welcomed it last night.

Now was the time to break this silence and talk to them.

Nothing was like before, but I needed them to stay sane.

Walter looked somewhat better, but Iris was way too silent to my worry.

Last night, we did nothing but just eat whatever we could eat and then went to bed.

Today, we started our routine monotonously, which was heavier than usual.

I did some online shopping for some stuff and groceries. The apartment had all the basic necessities like gas, water and electricity, but we needed more than that.

“What are you watching?” I asked Walter while sipping on my coffee.

“There is no news about yesterday's brawl.” He told me in a low voice.

I sat down on the couch beside him with a confused expression and watched the news with him.

I continued drinking coffee while reading the running news.

Walter was right.

There was no news about what happened in our area.

I took the remote from him and changed the channels, but there was really no news.

“We heard the siren when we left, but there is no news. How is this possible, Ethan?” Walter questioned me anxiously.

I narrowed my eyes while finishing my coffee.

“Even if you have erased all the surveillance footage, what about the bodies and the blood on the street?” Walter asked me again in the same anxious tone.

I jumped to my feet and shot to my room.

“Bro?” Walter yelled behind me, but I didn’t stop.

I immediately took my laptop, connected it to my new phone hotspot, and hacked the security system around our place.

My heart was now beating furiously, thinking about what exactly happened after we left.

I was good at hacking, but I had no time to think about erasing our traces.

Who did that?

Where are the bodies?

Walter also followed me and sat down beside me.

I went through all the cameras that covered even the slightest part of our area.

No traces….

Everything seemed normal and too clean.

Someone not only erased all the traces of the brawl and gunshots, but they also erased everything about us in the process.

No camera caught us running outside the house or going out on the street.

I had no money to install a camera in our home.

So, I relied on the street cameras to get the information, but there was nothing.

“You….. you didn’t do this,” Walter mumbled anxiously.

I clenched my jaw but didn’t say a word in response.

“I…. I am going back to my room. I need to finish my homework.” Walter mumbled while getting off the bed.

I stayed quiet, but my mind raced.

If someone erased my trace too, it meant that people from that dead man's gang came to our home. If they were there to kill us, they could do it at any time, and the first place they would try to find us….

School.

No….

I can’t let this happen.

I was about to close the laptop when I felt a sharp pain in my head.

A flicker and then…..

A man with a big dragon tattoo on his neck, smiling wickedly…

No face, but his teeth and that tattoo….

“They left nothing that can help us trace them, boss. Will those people kill us for not finishing the job?”

An anxious and angry voice, but not of that man….

“He killed Norman. Close shot.” That man’s voice…

“Erase all the traces of their existence there. Police shouldn’t find a single clue.”

A very familiar cold and mechanical voice, not of that man…

I jerked my head one more time and placed my palms on the mattress while breathing heavily.

This wasn’t the future.

It was the past.

They erased the traces because that mechanical and cold voice didn’t want anyone to find us.

What exactly is going on?

What changed this time was that I got a flicker of the past, but not the future.

Suddenly, that very same transparent screen appeared in front of me.

[System Alert: A life threat to your siblings has been detected]

My eyes immediately widened when the words appeared in red.

Before this, they were always blue.

[Two choices:]

[One: Run and Hide]

[Second: Stay and fight]

My heart raced again, but I stayed calm and waited for the system to give me the punishment and rewards.

[Make your choice, host]

What the f**k????

The countdown then appeared before my eyes.

Five….

Four…

Three…

My heart raced with every passing second.

What to choose…

Without knowing the consequences, what to choose….

Two….

“Second,” I yelled when the timer was about to stop.

It stopped at one, and I held my breath.

[For second choice: Your next task is to destroy a gambling den without being caught]

A gambling den????

[Reward: $1 million credit and a secure place in an esteemed school for your siblings]

[Punishment if you fail or get caught: you will be back to the time from when you restart with no memories]

My heart jumped out of my throat when I realized the intensity of the punishment.

Damn it.

This damn system.

[Bonus: You will get a generation-advanced computer system to finish this task.

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Every dot that appeared on the screen frustrated me.

It seemed as if the system were teasing me or testing my patience.

[You will receive the information about your task before midnight.

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[You will have only an hour to finish the task]

Nononononnonono…

I panicked and I tried to grab that screen, but it disappeared the same way it appeared.

“What the fu*k? Send us to our death instead.” I yelled angrily, throwing punches in the air.

“Bro?” I stopped abruptly when I heard Iris’s fearful, shaky voice.