2025-11-15 17:47:10Night settled over the city like a heavy blanket, swallowing the warehouse district in cold silence. Only a few flickering lamps stayed on—yellow, dim, indifferent. Leon trudged down the back corridor, boots dragging, every muscle sore from hours of lifting crates no human should be carrying alone.
His shift was finally over. But he wasn’t going home. Because he didn’t have one. He leaned against the wall, catching his breath, before pulling out his wallet—thin, worn, nearly empty. He opened it with a grim familiarity. Three crumpled bills. Loose coins. A bus card with barely enough credit for two rides. Nothing else. He stared at it for a long moment. Months ago, that wallet held black cards, platinum memberships, and invitations to events with people who shaped the city. Wealth was just something he had. A background feature of life. Taken for granted. Now the wallet felt like an obituary. A last remnant of someone who no longer existed. He slid the useless money back inside and stuffed the wallet into his pocket with a sigh. Rent was overdue—again. It didn’t matter, though. Because earlier today, his landlord had sent the final message: PAY IN 24 HOURS OR LEAVE. He didn’t even bother to respond. There was nothing left to pay with. Leon pushed open the side door and stepped into the warehouse’s old, unused storage hall. It smelled of dust, oil, and forgotten things. Piles of unclaimed equipment filled the corners—broken pallets, ripped tarps, unused cardboard boxes. A place management ignored because it held nothing of value. Except him. This was where he slept. A thin blanket stolen from the trash pile. A cardboard sheet for insulation. A tool crate flipped upside down to serve as a pillow. He walked to his “bed,” sat down, and exhaled slowly. The cold floor seeped through his clothes, spreading up his spine like a warning he no longer had the strength to care about. He took out his phone—the cracked screen lighting up his tired face. Balance: ₦48.27. Forty-eight naira. He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh and not quite a sob. “How did it come to this…” he whispered to no one. But he knew how. The moment Eveline framed him. The moment his father believed the lie. The moment Vanessa walked away. The moment doors slammed shut one after another. He tightened his grip on the phone. His hands were rougher now—calloused from lifting boxes, bruised from Mason’s petty punishments, scraped from rushing to meet quotas that were deliberately impossible. Leon lay back on the hard floor, staring up at the dusty ceiling. His stomach growled, reminding him he had skipped dinner again to save the last of his money for emergencies. But what emergency was he saving it for? His whole life was an emergency. His eyes stung. Exhaustion dragged at him like chains. He closed them, forcing his breathing to steady. At least here, in the quiet, no one could see him breaking. The warehouse hummed faintly in the background—machinery sleeping, lights buzzing overhead. It was the only lullaby he had left. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Eventually, his eyes grew heavy and he drifted toward sleep, cold and hungry but finally still— —until heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Leon shot upright. Not now. Not tonight. The footsteps stopped right outside the storage room. Then the door creaked open. Mason Briggs stepped inside. Flashlight in hand. Wearing that same smug expression that made every muscle in Leon’s body tense. “Well, well,” Mason drawled, sweeping the flashlight beam across the room. “Found the rat.” Leon swallowed. “Mason… I’m off the clock.” “You’re always on the clock, Hale.” Mason stepped closer. “Especially when you’re using company property for your… pathetic life.” Leon didn’t respond. He couldn’t afford to. Mason kicked the cardboard bedding aside. “Sleeping here again? You really are a stray. Should I call security? Or maybe HR would like to know one of their employees is living like a parasite in their warehouse.” Leon forced himself to stay calm. “I’m not hurting anyone.” “That’s where you’re wrong.” Mason bent down, smirking. “You exist. That’s hurting me.” Leon’s fingers curled. Just once—just once—he wanted to grab Mason’s collar and slam him into a wall. But he had no power. No money. No protection. Another complaint would cost him the only job he had left. So he breathed. Slowly. Controlled. Mason stood up. “I’m feeling generous tonight. I’ll let you stay. But tomorrow—” He leaned close, his breath hot and foul. “You’re working double. No breaks.” Leon’s jaw tightened. “That’s against company—” “Are you going to report me?” Mason laughed. “To who? Your family? Your rich little princess ex?” He stepped back and flicked off the flashlight. “Sleep tight, stray.” The door slammed. Silence returned. But this silence was different. Heaviness pressed against Leon’s chest until he felt his lungs tighten. His mind spun—memories of betrayal, humiliation, loss—everything folding together into a single crushing weight. He pressed a hand against his forehead. He couldn’t keep living like this. No one should live like this. His vision blurred. His breath shook. His chest burned with something sharp and unbearable. His emotions cracked open— And something inside him snapped. A cold mechanical chime echoed in the dark. …DING… Leon froze. A sound inside his mind—not the room. Then a voice followed, metallic, emotionless, undeniable: [EMOTIONAL COLLAPSE THRESHOLD REACHED] [REBIRTH SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMMENCING] Leon’s breath hitched. The air around him felt different. Alive. Charged. The darkness seemed to pulse. [Host Identified: Leon Hale] [Status: Destitute. Broken. Prime Candidate.] His heart thundered. A system…? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But the voice continued: [Loading Core Protocols…] [Calculating Survival Probability: 6%] [Boost Required] Leon’s pulse hammered in his ears. He sat there, trembling, half in fear, half in disbelief. Then the final message appeared in his mind—sharp, cold, absolute: [REBIRTH SYSTEM ACTIVATED.] The last piece of Leon Hale’s old life shattered. Nothing would ever be the same again.
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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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