2025-11-15 17:44:55Rain had stopped hours ago, but the streets still shimmered with puddles that reflected the city’s neon lights. Leon walked home after another brutal shift, shoulders aching, back stiff, clothes carrying the dust and sweat of the warehouse. Each step was heavy, mechanical—just surviving one day at a time.
He wasn’t expecting to see her. He wasn’t prepared, either. The universe didn’t care. He turned the corner, heading toward the bus stop. A sleek black coupe slowed beside the curb, its engine humming like wealth in motion. The windows rolled down—and familiar laughter spilled out, bright, soft, carefree. Vanessa Crowe. A name that stabbed him even before she turned her head. She looked… radiant. Hair styled perfectly, makeup glowing under the streetlight, luxury earrings catching the shine. The same smile he once woke up to—it was now aimed at someone else. The man beside her sat confidently behind the wheel. Designer suit. Golden wristwatch. Masculine, polished, smug. The type of man Vanessa always dreamed of—but pretended she didn’t. Leon froze. He was still wearing his warehouse uniform. Still covered in dirt and exhaustion. Still carrying the weight of losing everything. Vanessa noticed him first. Her smile faltered for a heartbeat—surprise flickering across her face—before shifting into something colder. “Leon?” she said, tilting her head. “Wow… you look… different.” Not different. Broken. That’s what she meant. Leon swallowed. “Vanessa.” Her boyfriend glanced at him. “Babe, who’s this?” “Oh,” she said lightly, as if introducing a stray dog, “just someone I used to date.” Someone I used to date. Not the man she once claimed she’d marry. Not the man she cried over when he missed her birthday dinner because of work. Just someone. The words hit him harder than Mason’s insults. The boyfriend leaned forward slightly, smirking. “This the guy you told me about? The disowned one?” Leon’s jaw tightened involuntarily. Vanessa laughed—the same soft laugh she once used to melt him. “Yes. That one.” “Damn,” the boyfriend said, looking Leon up and down. “That’s rough, man.” Vanessa sighed exaggeratedly. “Well, he made his choices. And karma did the rest.” Leon said nothing. There was nothing to say. He stood there drenched in humiliation, watching the woman who once held his heart dismiss him like an old, irrelevant memory. Vanessa’s eyes flicked to his uniform. “So the rumors were true… you really did fall that far.” She leaned closer out the window, her expression dripping with pity that wasn’t real. “Working as a warehouse laborer? Really, Leon? You used to wear tailored suits.” Leon didn’t respond. She didn’t deserve the truth—or the pain still burning inside him. Vanessa shook her head lightly. “You know, I used to worry about you. But seeing you like this… I guess some people just weren’t meant to stay at the top.” Her boyfriend chuckled. “Babe, don’t be mean.” “What? I’m just being honest,” she said, still staring at Leon. “Look at him. He’s like a—” She paused. Her lips curved into a cruel smile. “A useless stray.” Leon felt something deep inside him shift. Not anger. Not sadness. Something colder. A wound closing into a scar. Vanessa rested her chin on her hand. “Honestly, seeing you now? I’m glad I left. I upgraded, Leon. This—” She gestured to the luxury car, the wealthy boyfriend, the glowing lifestyle. “—is the kind of life I deserve.” Her boyfriend placed a hand on the wheel. “We should go, babe. Reservation in twenty minutes.” “Right.” Vanessa flicked her hair. “Well, Leon, take care… or whatever it is people like you say to each other these days.” The window began to roll up— But she lowered it again, as if remembering something. “Oh, and Leon?” He looked at her, emotionless. “Don’t try to contact me again. We aren’t in the same world anymore.” Then the window slid shut. The coupe pulled away smoothly, leaving behind exhaust fumes, tire marks, and silence. Leon watched until the taillights disappeared into the city, swallowed by glittering roads he no longer walked on. For a long moment, he stood there staring at nothing. The rain had stopped—but somehow, the cold had sunk deeper. He thought losing his family hurt. He thought the corporate betrayal hurt. He thought Mason’s humiliation hurt. But Vanessa… Her words carved through him with surgical precision. A useless stray. His hands curled slowly into fists. Not at her. Not at the boyfriend. At himself. For still caring. For still bleeding from wounds he pretended were healed. A breeze passed by, chilling him through the thin uniform. The bus arrived. People got off. People got on. Leon didn’t move. His reflection in the bus stop glass stared back at him—hollow eyes, dirty clothes, slumped shoulders. This wasn’t him. Not the real him. Not the man who once commanded a room. Not the heir trained for leadership. Not the son who carried a legacy. No— This was the shadow of a man destroyed by betrayal. Leon drew a long, shaky breath. Then another. Until his heartbeat settled into a slow, cold rhythm. Vanessa was gone. His past was gone. His name was gone. But something inside him refused to die. The part of him that whispered: Rise. He turned away from the empty street. This was the last day he’d let words break him. Soon— Very soon— The world would regret ever calling him a stray.
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Ch. 14 — The Emotional Threshold
The bridge was silent.Too silent.Leon sat hunched against the cold metal railing, his body drained, his eyes swollen from crying — something he never thought he’d do again. The night air stung his face, but he barely felt it.He was numb.Completely, utterly numb.But inside that numbness… something stirred.A tremble.A pulse.A vibration like the faint thrum of a distant machine warming up.He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his head with both hands.“Stop…” he whispered. “Just stop…”His thoughts weren’t thoughts anymore.They were fragments.Shards.Pieces of a shattered self.Vanessa’s laughter.Mason’s insults.Eveline’s venom.Alexander’s eyes as he signed the disownment papers.The flash of cameras.The cold warehouse concrete.The river.The brokenness.The emptiness.Everything hit him at once — a tidal wave of years of pressure collapsing inward.His breathing sped up.His pulse raced.His fingers dug into his scalp so hard he felt the sting of nails against skin.“Stop…
Ch. 13 — A Night of Despair
The storm eased sometime after midnight, but the cold didn’t lift.It wrapped itself around Leon like a second skin as he dragged himself across the cracked pavement, still shaken by the strange flashes of light and sound that had echoed through his mind.Had he imagined it?Was it a hallucination from exhaustion?The rainwater dripping from his hair made it hard to think.Harder to breathe.He didn’t go back to the warehouse.He couldn’t—not yet.Instead, his feet carried him toward the old iron bridge crossing the river at the edge of the industrial district. A lonely place. Quiet. Forgotten. Like him.By the time he reached the midpoint, the storm had died completely, leaving only the hiss of wind over the dark water.Leon gripped the railing with both hands, knuckles white.The river below was black—so dark it swallowed the reflection of the city lights. The current moved slowly, like something alive, waiting.He stared down at it.For a long time… he didn’t move.---His shoulder
Ch. 12 — The Broken Man
tThe rain came down in sheets, turning the streets into rivers of cold water that splashed against Leon’s ankles as he walked.No umbrella.No jacket.No destination.Just pain.Just emptiness.Just the weight of another humiliating day.He limped slightly—the result of a fall earlier that afternoon. Mason had “accidentally” knocked a crate off a high shelf. Leon barely dodged it, but the second crate Mason shoved after it struck Leon’s shoulder, sending him crashing onto concrete.The bruise spread down his arm like a blackened spiderweb.The supervisor only smirked.“Try not to die on shift, Hale. Paperwork annoys me.”Leon hadn’t answered.What was the point?Now, hours later, the injury burned with every step, pulsing like a reminder of how far he had fallen.Thunder cracked overhead, but the storm was nothing compared to the one raging inside him.His breath fogged the air as he crossed under a flickering streetlamp. The yellow light illuminated the soaked bandage wrapped around
Ch. 11 — The Collapse Begins
The rain hadn’t stopped.By the time Leon returned to the warehouse, his uniform clung to him like a second skin, soaked through with cold and humiliation. The night shift lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows across the empty loading bay.His steps felt heavier than they should.His chest tighter than it had ever been.He moved like a man carrying a mountain.---The storage room—his “home”—was dim and damp. A thin mattress lay in the corner, barely better than cardboard. Leon shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it, sliding down slowly until he was sitting on the floor.His body ached, but the real pain wasn’t physical.It pulsed from somewhere deeper… a place he didn’t know could hurt this much.He dropped the envelope—the final inheritance papers—onto the ground. It landed with a soft thud, like dirt hitting a coffin.Leon stared at it.“That’s it,” he breathed. “They’ve completely erased me.”His voice sounded foreign—even to himself.He had lived his whole
Ch. 10 — Eveline’s Final Knife
The warehouse break room smelled of old coffee and metal dust. Leon sat alone on a cracked plastic chair, his body still aching from the twelve-hour shift Mason had deliberately stretched just to “test his limits.” His palms were raw, his shoulders burning, his pride almost gone.Almost.He stared at his phone—one of the only things he had left that still worked since his accounts were frozen. A single message notification blinked.From: Family Attorney – UrgentHis pulse kicked hard.He opened the message.> “Leon, you need to come in. There has been a final decision regarding the Hale inheritance.”A cold weight sank into his stomach.Final decision.Something told him it wasn’t going to be in his favor.---Thirty minutes later, Leon stood outside the glass-paneled office of Mr. Whitford, the Hale family attorney. Rain drizzled down his hair, soaking through his cheap uniform. He didn’t bother wiping it off.Inside, Mr. Whitford looked uneasy—almost guilty.“Leon,” he said, rising
CHAPTER. 9 — Mason’s Threat
Leon didn’t sleep after the system awakened.How could he?That cold mechanical voice still echoed at the back of his mind, sharp as broken glass:[REBIRTH SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]His life had collapsed so brutally that something—not human—had chosen him as a “prime candidate.”And yet morning came like always, dragging him back into the world he still had to endure.The warehouse buzzed alive with forklifts, workers shouting, machinery rumbling. Leon stepped onto the floor with stiff legs and sore shoulders, head low, eyes heavy from a night without rest. He expected exhaustion.He didn’t expect to run straight into Mason Briggs.The supervisor stood near the timeclock, arms crossed, a grin already spreading across his face. Mason’s smile wasn’t friendly. It was the type that belonged to someone who loved watching things break.Especially people.“There he is,” Mason said loudly, drawing the attention of the nearby workers. “The stray dog reporting for duty.”A few workers chuckled. Other
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