MY RIDER SYSTEM

02. Second Chance

The room fell silent.

“I don’t care who you are,” she said through gritted teeth. “You’re not touching him again.”

The man froze, caught completely off guard. He hadn’t expected resistance, especially not after what he’d done to her.

Kael noticed it too.

Even through his pain, he felt something spark inside him. His sister was hurt, her face bloodied, but she was still standing, protecting him. She had always been the shield between him and the world’s cruelty.

For a moment, even the men holding her hesitated.

Then their rage returned.

They yanked her back harder, dragging her across the floor. She didn’t stop fighting, not even for a moment.

She kicked, screamed, and thrashed with all she had. She didn’t care what they did to her so long as they left her brother alone.

But there were too many of them.

Hands pinned her wrists. Others dragged her helplessly down the hallway.

“LET ME GO!” she screamed.

“STOP!” Kael cried, his voice too weak and broken.

She reached for him, her fingers scratching desperately at the floor until her nails bent back and snapped.

“KAEL!”

He watched through blurred vision as her braid disappeared around the corner. Her voice was the last thing he heard echo through the dark until it was gone.

And she was taken.

---

Kael lay on the ground. His ribs hurt, and every breath he took was hard and painful. The memory of that slap echoed in his head over and over again. Even beaten, she had stood tall.

And if she could… then so could he.

Groaning, he forced himself up. One hand clutched his ribs, while the other pressed against the wall for support. Each step was agony, but he moved forward anyway.

He stumbled through the wreckage of what had been their home. He moved past the broken table where they had laughed just hours ago, past the blood-stained floor, past the shattered lamp that once lit their evenings.

And then… the portraits.

They hung untouched along the hallway.

He paused, just long enough to see them. His younger self smiled in those photos, a boy full of joy and mischief, clinging to her side. She looked so much older, with long white hair braided neatly down her back and kind blue eyes that warmed every picture.

Even frozen in glass, she looked like home.

After their parents died in a fire, it had only been the two of them. She had raised him, protected him, and carried the weight of everything. She had promised, with every smile and hug, that she would never leave him.

But the f**kers had taken her anyway!

Gritting his teeth, Kael limped to the door. The street outside was covered in pale moonlight. Fog curled low across the ground. Then it happened.

VROOOM.

Came the roar of an engine. Kael spun in time to see a black car speeding away. Through the back window... he saw her.

Her wrists were bound with straps of clothing, and her mouth was covered.

“NO!” Kael shouted, stumbling forward. “WAIT! COME BACK!”

He ran barefoot into the night, ignoring the pain shooting through his body.

“I’m coming! HOLD ON!”

Glass on the road cut into his feet, but he didn’t care. He just kept running.

How could he stop now? His sister, his only family, was being dragged away, thrown into the back of a car like she was nothing.

If by chance, you were in his place, would you stop? Would you even hesitate?

Not when it’s your sister. Not when she’s the last piece of your shattered world.

“SIS! PLEASE!” he screamed, his voice loud enough to wake the dead.

Through the back window, he saw her eyes wide with terror, locked on his. And in that look, he swore he would never let her be taken. Not while he still had breath in his body.

She shook her head, tears streaming down her face while her mouth moved to mutter words he couldn’t hear. He refused to believe it was goodbye. Whatever she had to say, she could tell him herself when he got her back.

He ran harder. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but he pushed forward. The car was right f**king there! He could almost reach it. Just a few more steps—

Then, out of nowhere, headlights blinded him. A horn blared, and Kael's nightmare truly began.

*CRASH*

The impact threw him across the road. His body hit metal, then pavement. His bones cracked and blood pooled beneath him.

The black car didn't stop. It vanished into the fog, taking his surviving family with it.

Kael’s vision blurred through it all. He could barely hear people coming out of their houses and shouting around him, the clicks of phones as they took pictures, one man trying to call an ambulance.

He had failed. The words hit him harder than the car ever could.

‎He hadn't been fast enough. He hadn't been strong enough. He hadn't reached her, and now she was gone, ripped from him while he bled into the street like he was nothing.

All he could see were the taillights fading into the night.

Through the glass, his sister stared back. Her face was the last thing he ever saw.

‎"No… Kael… KAEl!”

---

'Don’t take her.'

'Don't take her from me, please…'

The words never left his lips, but he pleaded anyway, his hand reaching out desperately into nothingness.

'I wasn’t fast enough… I wasn’t strong enough... I’m not enough!'

And in the silence that followed, he quietly realized.

'If only I had power… if I had even an ounce of strength beyond this broken shell of a body… this never would’ve happened.'

The thought struck him harder than the ringing in his ear. His chest rose and fell, but no air seemed enough. He looked at his trembling hands, the small, bloody useless things that could do nothing but reach, fail, and fall short.

Tears blurred his vision. Oh, how he hated them. He hated how weak they made him look. But they fell anyway, running down his face.

'I couldn’t protect her. I can’t protect anyone…'

Her voice still echoed in his head, begging them to spare him. She had thrown herself to the wolves to shield him, screamed herself raw for him… and what had he done? Crawled in the dirt, only to cry like a child now?

His fists clenched until his nails dug into his skin. 'Why am I so useless? Why do I bloody exist like this?'

The world around him dimmed and soon, Kael started to lose consciousness from the blood loss as the inevitability of death finally sunk in. His senses started to dull and after a while, he could no longer feel anything but an endless void he was drifting through.

'This is it, I guess. This is the end of my pitiful existence…'

Slowly drifting into endless sleep, even thinking became hard for him.

“Please…” his lips moved, a whisper no one could hear, not even himself. “Give me strength. One more chance. Let me protect her. Let me… protect someone…”

He hated this world. But more than that, he hated himself.

And in that pit of hopelessness, when everything seemed lost, a small sound broke through.

*Ding!*

Kael blinked. A glowing text appeared before his eyes.

【 SYSTEM INITIALIZING… 】

'What…?'

【 System Activation: Requirements Met 】

【 User has fulfilled the required condition: “Despair Beyond Return.” 】

'Condition? Requirement?' None of it made sense. Speaking of things not making sense, was this even real? He wondered. Or was it just his mind playing tricks on him, breaking apart before death?

【 The System has chosen you. 】

【 Would you like to change your fate? 】

【 Would you like power beyond mortal grasp?】

'To be given this now, at the point of my death… life really is f-ed up.'

He forced a bitter laugh that died in his throat. Saying ‘Yes’ would mean signing a contract with a stranger he didn't even know, something he could not possibly fathom. How do you bargain with fate when you can’t even stand?

Kael felt the cold ground under his palms. He tasted blood and salt and years of “what ifs.” You don’t take freebies, a small, mean voice in his head said — something he’d learned after having to earn everything the hard way. But this wasn’t money or food. This was everything. And he couldn’t really say ‘No.’ Part of him wanted to refuse because accepting felt like giving up the last bit of dignity he had…

【 All it requires… is your answer. 】

【 Do you wish to rise? 】

The words wrote themselves letter by letter before him.

'To accept this would be to hand a stranger my life in exchange for something that might break me worse… And you often always pay back in full!'

Still, the thought slipped out before shame could stop it.

'Damn it. Damn it all.' The thought screamed in his head.

'Just give it to me already. A second chance, you say?'

Tears blurred his sight, but this time, they weren’t weaknesses. They were hope.

With every ounce of strength he had left, Kael’s lips curved into the faintest, broken smile.

“…Where do I sign?”

And the world shattered into light. At the same time, he lost consciousness.

【 Acknowledged. 】

【 Contract forged. 】

【 Player recognized: Kael Morren 】

【 CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING A PLAYER_ 】

‎