My Secret TikTok Life: Family Disgrace to Global Kingmaker

Chapter 13: The First Upload

The air in the library felt thin, as if the thousands of books surrounding me were breathing in the same oxygen I needed to stay conscious. My vision was no longer a clear window; it was a fragmented mosaic of flickering gold data and the dull, grey reality of the library’s carpet.

[Warning: Physical Integrity 5%] [System Note: Adrenaline Depleted. Heart of Ice reaching its cooling limit.]

"Just… one… more… thing," I whispered, my fingers dragging across the cracked screen.

The video was ready. I had titled it: The Voice of the 4:00 AM Shadow. I wasn't just relying on luck. I activated Viral Foresight. Through the screen, the digital landscape of the city didn't look like a series of websites; it looked like a living lung. I could see the "breathing" of the algorithm—the rhythmic expansion and contraction of global attention. Every few seconds, there was a lull, a moment where the "Big Platforms" shifted their weight, clearing the old data to make room for the new.

In the old days, I used to guess when that moment was. Now, I could see the exact microsecond the "breath" happened.

[Algorithm Breath in 3… 2… 1…]

I slammed my thumb onto the Publish button.

[Uploading: 0.1%]

The bar began its agonizing crawl. Each percentage point felt like a drop of blood leaving my body. I leaned forward, my forehead resting against the cool, hard edge of the library desk. The smell of the plastic keyboard was overwhelming. My heart was thumping a slow, heavy rhythm—thump… thump… thump…—like a dying engine.

[Upload: 24%]

I watched the "Contrast Filter" I’d embedded—the digital poison I’d prepared for Marcus—begin to weave itself into the web. The System was doing something I couldn't have done even with a million-dollar server bank. It was tagging the video so that it would appear as a "Suggested Next" for anyone currently viewing Marcus’s steak-and-eggs photo.

It was a digital ambush. If you were looking at a billionaire’s breakfast, you were about to see a girl with a birthmark getting punched for her guitar. The "Luxury Fatigue" the System had detected earlier would do the rest. The world would see the steak, and then they would see the blood. And they would hate the steak.

[Upload: 58%]

The library around me began to fade. The sound of a distant printer, the clicking of Mrs. Gable’s heels, the rustle of newspapers—it all blended into a low-frequency hum. I felt a cold sweat break out across my neck. My stomach had stopped cramping; it had simply gone numb, a vast, empty cavern where my strength used to be.

"Stay with it, Salim," I breathed, my eyes unfocused. "Don't let them… win."

I thought of the "Debt of Upbringing." Five hundred thousand dollars. I thought of the way my father hadn't even looked at me as he burned my life’s work. I thought of the look on Elara’s face when she realized I’d spent my last dollar on her bus pass.

I wasn't just an "Assistant" or a "Manager" anymore. I was the architect of a haunting.

[Upload: 88%]

My arm felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn't keep my head up any longer. I let it sink onto my crossed arms on the desk. The cold wood felt like a pillow. The gold light of the System began to dim, retreating into the edges of the screen as my brain started to shut down non-essential systems to keep my heart beating.

[Upload: 95%]

Almost there.

[Upload: 99%]

The screen gave one final, triumphant chime—a sound that felt like it echoed in the center of my skull.

[Upload Complete. 100%.] [The Kingmaker has spoken. May the world listen.]

The phone’s screen went black, the battery finally giving up the ghost. At the exact same moment, the last of my consciousness flickered out. The Heart of Ice finally shattered, letting the full weight of the exhaustion, the hunger, and the pain of the last forty-eight hours wash over me.

Darkness claimed me.

---

"Excuse me! Sir! You cannot sleep here!"

The voice was sharp, cutting through the thick fog of my unconsciousness like a siren. I didn't open my eyes; I couldn't. I felt a hand—stiff and unkind—shaking my shoulder.

"I warned you," the voice continued. It was Mrs. Gable. I could hear the triumph in her tone. "I told you this isn't a shelter. Look at him, he’s practically dead to the world. And the smell! It’s making the other patrons uncomfortable."

I tried to groan, but my throat was too dry. I felt like I was being pulled up from the bottom of a deep, dark well.

"Is he a vagrant?" another voice asked. This one was deeper, male. A security guard.

"He certainly looks the part," Mrs. Gable snapped. "Check his pockets. He’s probably hiding something. He was huddled over that phone like he was stealing the Wi-Fi. Probably one of those people who tries to live in the library."

I felt heavy boots vibrating the floor next to my head. I wanted to tell them I was a Bakar. I wanted to tell them I’d just changed the course of the city’s digital history. But I was just a boy in a wet hoodie with no money and a split lip. I was exactly what they thought I was: a nuisance.

"Alright, buddy, let’s go," the guard said, his voice lacks any sympathy. He grabbed me by the back of my hoodie and hauled me upward.

My head lolled back, my eyes fluttering open for a split second. I saw the blurred, angry face of the guard and Mrs. Gable standing behind him with her arms crossed, looking at me with pure, unadulterated disgust.

"Out you go," the guard said. "You can sleep in the park with the rest of them. This is a house of learning."

I felt my feet dragging across the polished floor. I didn't have the strength to fight, or even to stand. They were dragging me toward the bronze doors, toward the cold, and toward the park.

I didn't care.

In my mind, as the darkness threatened to take me again, I saw the progress bar. I saw the 100%.

As they threw me out onto the granite steps of the library, my body tumbling onto the hard stone, I didn't feel the pain. All I could think about was the "Algorithm Breath."

The video was out there now.

And as I rolled onto my back, looking up at the grey sky before passing out once more, I knew that while I was being treated like garbage on the street, the world was currently falling in love with a girl who was about to make the Bakar name irrelevant.