2025-09-20 23:17:46The grand hall of Lugard Ford shimmered with chandeliers, their light bouncing across a thousand polished glasses. Laughter, music, the hum of the graduating elite
it all fell into silence when Ethan Hale stepped onto the stage.He dropped to one knee.
“Selena,” he said, his voice steady, though his chest hammered like a war drum, “from the moment I met you, you’ve been my world. Will you marry me?”
The hall gasped. Professors leaned forward. Students froze mid-toast. For a heartbeat, the entire academy seemed to hold its breath.
Then, Selena Voss tilted her head back and laughed. Not the laugh he had cherished, the one like bells on a spring morning. No, this was sharp. Cold. Cutting.
“Marry you?” Her heels clicked against the stage as she stepped forward, her lips curling in disdain. “Ethan… do you really think you deserve me?”
A ripple of whispers spread. Some chuckled. Some smirked. Ethan’s hand tightened around the ring box. He rose slowly, confusion clouding his gaze. “Selena, what are you?” She cut him off with a sneer.
“There are things you weren’t born with. Things you’ll never have, no matter how hard you try. Money. Power. Status. Do you think love alone can put food on the table? Do you think your pathetic part-time jobs could ever sustain me?”
The crowd broke into murmurs, sharp as knives. Ethan felt the weight of every eye piercing him. His voice was quiet, but steady. “Selena… I thought what we had”
“What we had?” she interrupted, laughter dripping with venom. “Just one of my handbags costs more than what you’ll make in four years scrubbing tables. Four years, Ethan. And you thought you could propose to me?”
The audience chuckled, some openly laughing now. His chest burned, but he held her gaze.
“You’re not like this,” he said firmly. “You’re angry, maybe nervous in front of everyone. But this isn’t”
“Oh, please.” She lifted her hand, revealing earrings that shimmered faintly, alive with pulsing light. “See these? Solar-powered, anti-aging, worth billions. My boyfriend gave them to me. Just because he felt like it. You?”
She leaned closer, her whisper slicing across the microphone, magnified for all to hear. “You’d have to dig in a mine for a thousand years to afford them.” Gasps echoed through the hall. Ethan froze. His hand trembled.
“Boyfriend?” he repeated, each syllable carved from disbelief. Selena smiled sweetly, and in one cruel motion, turned toward the crowd.
“Damien,” she called.
A figure rose from the front row. Tall, broad-shouldered, suit tailored to perfection. Damien Cross strolled to the stage like he owned the air itself. Applause erupted, but it wasn’t for Ethan. It was mockery.
Selena slipped into Damien’s arms without hesitation. “This,” she said, pressing against him, “is the man who can give me happiness.”
Damien smirked at Ethan. “Tough luck, buddy. Not everyone’s cut out for the big leagues.”
Laughter thundered. Glasses clinked. Ethan stood frozen, ring box still open in his palm, its small diamond suddenly looking like a pebble in a storm.
His lips parted, but no words came. The crowd laughed harder. Damien’s voice cut through the noise, dripping with superiority. “You should’ve known your place, Hale. Guys like you… you’re entertainment for us. Nothing more.”
Selena leaned against him, triumphant. “So tell me, Ethan. What makes you think you could ever give me happiness?”
The final knife twisted. The room roared with ridicule. Ethan’s ears rang. And yet his eyes, though burning, did not break.
He closed the ring box slowly. Straightened his shoulders. Inside, his thoughts were ice. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, you’ll see.
“Look at his face!” someone shouted from the crowd. “Like a stray dog that just lost its bone!”
The hall exploded with laughter. Champagne glasses clinked. Phones rose into the air, recording the scene, immortalizing his humiliation.
Selena turned back toward Ethan, her voice sugar-coated but dripping with cruelty.
Ethan’s jaw tightened. His knuckles whitened around the small velvet box. “Selena,” he said, each word measured, “was everything between us… just a game to you?”
Her eyes flashed no hesitation, no guilt. “Of course. Did you really believe I’d settle for… this?” She waved her manicured fingers toward his worn-out suit, the scuffed shoes he’d polished until dawn.
“You were nothing more than… practice.”The crowd gasped, then laughed harder.
Damien stepped forward, arm tightening around Selena’s waist. His smile was razor sharp.
Ethan’s voice dropped lower, calm in the storm. “And what about love, Selena? Was that also worthless?”
Selena tilted her head, mock sympathy dripping from her tone. “Love? Love doesn’t pay bills. Love doesn’t buy private jets or penthouses in the sky.
Wake up, Ethan. You’re not a prince. You’re a beggar who mistook kindness for affection.”
Her words cut deeper than the laughter. For a long, agonizing second, Ethan stared at her, seeing not the girl he’d once believed in but a stranger cloaked in cruelty and greed.
A professor shifted uncomfortably, but no one intervened. The spectacle was too intoxicating. Ethan closed the ring box with a soft click.
The sound was swallowed by the hall’s mocking chorus, but in his chest, it thundered like a gunshot.
“Selena,” he said quietly, his eyes locked on hers, “I hope you never regret this moment.” Selena smirked, leaning closer to Damien. “Regret? Darling, the only thing I regret is not ending this charade sooner.”
Damien chuckled. “Come on, Selena. We’ve wasted enough time on him. Let the pauper crawl back to his part-time jobs.”
The two turned, walking away together, basking in the applause and jeers that followed.
Ethan stood alone under the chandelier’s harsh light, surrounded by laughter that felt like daggers against his skin. His fingers dug into the ring box until it hurt, But his eyes his eyes were no longer broken. They were steel. The ceremony resumed, but the energy had shifted.
Every toast, every speech, every clap of hands was tinged with the echo of Ethan’s humiliation, He descended the stage slowly, each step heavier than the last. Students leaned close, whispering loudly enough for him to hear.
“Did you see his face? Like a dead man walking.”
“Who proposes without money in the bank?”
“Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.”
A girl near the aisle giggled, covering her mouth. “If I were him, I’d never show my face again.”
Ethan walked past them, silent, his back straight. He refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing him collapse. Near the exit, a familiar voice called softly.
“Ethan…”
He turned. It was Clara, a quiet classmate who’d always lingered on the edges of their group. Her eyes held sympathy. “I’m… sorry. That was cruel.”
For a moment, warmth flickered in his chest. But then Damien’s mocking laughter echoed across the hall, drowning it out. Clara’s pity meant nothing.
He offered her a faint nod, then pushed through the double doors into the night. The air outside was sharp, biting against his skin. Street lamps buzzed faintly, casting long shadows across the academy courtyard.
Ethan stood still, letting the night wind wash over him. The ring box felt heavy in his pocket. He pulled it out, staring at the diamond that now looked so small, so powerless.
You’d have to dig in a mine for a thousand years…
Her words rang in his ears. Slowly, he clenched his fist. The velvet box cracked under the pressure, but he didn’t let go. Not yet.
Behind him, laughter spilled from the hall, muffled but relentless. He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow.
His grandfather’s words returned, spoken months ago in that low, commanding tone,
“The Hale heir must never inherit with arrogance. Until you graduate, you live as a man with nothing. No funds. No safety nets. Only your own hands. Endure it, and you will earn everything.”
Tomorrow, the chains broke. Tomorrow, the world would learn who Ethan Hale truly was. But tonight, he endured their laughter. His phone buzzed. A message flashed on the screen.
Unknown Number:
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CHAPTER 196 — When the Ground Refuses to Choose
The meeting was not called. It happened. Rayyan noticed it only after the circle was already forming people drifting toward one another in the shell of a collapsed transit hub, drawn by exhaustion more than purpose.No banners. No raised voices. Just bodies settling where there was space to sit. Some were responders. Some were citizens. Some were angry enough that they hadn’t trusted themselves to go home yet.Miriam leaned against a cracked pillar nearby, watching without interfering. Iseul hovered at the edge like a ghost unsure whether he was allowed to occupy physical space.Rayyan stood apart. Not excluded. Uncentered. A woman spoke first not loudly. “We can’t keep doing this blind,” she said, rubbing soot from her hands. “No system. No anchor. Just… guessing.”A man across from her shook his head. “The system guessed too. It just hid the cost.” Murmurs followed. Agreement. Disagreement. The sound of people discovering that talking was harder without a script.Rayyan felt the ech
CHAPTER 195 — Where the Weight Finally Lands
The council chamber was never meant to be full. It had been designed for twelve seats, each spaced with ceremonial precision, each wired once to systems that no longer answered.Now more than a hundred people stood shoulder to shoulder inside it, with hundreds more listening through open doors and broken walls, the air thick with heat, sweat, and unresolved argument.Rayyan stood at the back. Not hidden. Just… uncentered. That, more than anything else, made people uneasy. A woman was shouting at the front an elected coordinator from one of the outer districts, her voice hoarse with fury and fear.“You’re asking us to gamble lives!” she said. “No stabilizers, no override authority, no external correction just hope?”A man across from her slammed his palm onto a cracked table. “Hope is what we’ve been using for decades while anchors decided who drowned first!”The argument fractured instantly voices rising, alliances splitting and reforming in seconds. It was loud. It was messy. It was
CHAPTER 194 — When Choice Becomes a Shape
The vote was scheduled for nightfall. That alone told Rayyan everything. Not after rest. Not after grief. After exhaustion when people were most willing to trade agency for relief.He stood on a rooftop overlooking the plaza, the city stretched beneath him in fractured geometry. Fires were mostly out now. Lights flickered back on in patches. Order, improvised and uneven, was reasserting itself.Miriam joined him, handing over a cup of lukewarm water. “They’re calling it a coordination council,” she said. “Temporary. Emergency-only. Rotating seats.”Rayyan snorted softly. “Every cage is temporary,” he said. “Until someone gets used to it.”Below them, banners were already going up clean, deliberate symbols painted hastily but confidently. People needed something to look at while they waited.Symbols were efficient that way. Iseul appeared from the stairwell, breathless.“It’s spreading faster than here,” he said. “Other cities are already copying the model. Some are asking for… guidanc
CHAPTER 193 — The Whisper That Sounds Like Reason
The whisper didn’t arrive as a voice. It arrived as a thought Rayyan almost believed was his own. This is unsustainable.He noticed it while lifting debris with three strangers noticed the way the sentence slid neatly into place, reasonable and calm, carrying no threat, no hunger. Just logic. The kind that sounded like concern.His hands froze on the cracked slab. Miriam saw it immediately. “You heard it,” she said. Rayyan exhaled slowly. “It’s changed tactics.”The hungry presence had learned. Not fear. Not chaos. Fatigue. Around them, the city moved slower than it had at dawn. Fewer volunteers. More arguments ending unresolved.People sitting instead of standing. Watching instead of acting. Reason was doing what terror couldn’t. “This won’t last.” “We need structure.” “Someone has to take responsibility.”Rayyan felt it everywhere now threading through conversations, settling behind people’s eyes. Miriam clenched her jaw. “It’s not lying,” she said quietly. “That’s what makes it dan
CHAPTER 192 — The World After the Answer
Morning arrived without permission. Not clean. Not hopeful. Just inevitable. Gray light crept over the city, revealing what night had hidden: burned facades, exhausted bodies slumped against walls, hands still gripping tools they hadn’t put down.Smoke lingered low, turning sunrise into something bruised and dim. Rayyan sat on the curb where he’d ended the night, back aching, eyes burning from more than smoke.He hadn’t slept. Neither had Miriam. They’d traded silence in fragments watching people work, argue, reconcile, drift apart. Survival was louder in daylight.A woman screamed when she found her storefront collapsed. A man laughed hysterically when a trapped generator sputtered back to life. Someone started crying because the water finally ran again.No system logged it. No Archive recorded it. But Rayyan felt it anyway. Not as command. As accumulation. “You’re shaking,” Miriam said quietly.He looked down. His hands trembled fine, constant. “I think my body’s finally figured out
CHAPTER 191 — The Moment Before the Crowd Decides
The first death after the choice was quiet. No breach. No distortion. No hungry laughter threading through the seams of reality.Just a man bleeding out on a cracked sidewalk because two groups couldn’t agree on who controlled the last functioning med unit.nRayyan arrived too late.He knelt beside the body while Miriam checked for a pulse she already knew wouldn’t be there. The man’s eyes were open, unfocused, reflecting firelight and the shapes of people standing in a loose circle around him ash-streaked, stunned, defensive.A woman whispered, “It wasn’t supposed to go like that.” Rayyan didn’t look up. “It never is,” he said quietly.The crowd shifted. Not outward. Inward. This was different from anger. Different from accusation. This was fear learning a shape.Someone spoke too loudly. Someone else snapped back. Hands tightened on improvised weapons pipes, broken signs, pieces of a world that had stopped promising safety.Miriam stood slowly. “Everyone take a step back,” she said.
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