Rise Of The Student Pauper

CHAPTER 3

Darren didn’t respond to her. He simply turned his back on them and walked out of the house.

The night felt endless. He was drowning in sorrow to the point where he didn’t even think of taking his bicycle.

He walked without knowing where he was going. His chest burned from the weight of everything that had just happened. Each step scraped against the pavement, as he kept trudging.

Clara’s words kept replaying in his mind, clear and cold as if she were still standing before him.

“Isn’t it time you got ashamed of yourself?” her words replayed and echoed in his head, making him dizzy.

He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. The words rang louder than the sound of his own breathing.

“Maybe she’s right,” he muttered hoarsely. “Maybe I really am pathetic.”

He laughed weakly, half bitter, half broken, then kicked the wall closest to him. “I worked, I saved, I skipped meals just to make her happy. And she…” His voice cracked. 

“She called me a delivery boy...”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small wad of crumpled bills he had saved for her birthday gift. The money looked meaningless now, just paper in his eyes. He stared at it through blurry eyes.

“All this time,” he whispered, “I was planning a surprise. She was giving herself to someone else.”

A lump formed in his throat. He squeezed the money in his palm until it tore, then let the scraps drift to the ground.

The streets were quiet, so quiet that it scared him. His bicycle was still at Adrian’s father’s mansion, forgotten like everything else he cared about. 

He wandered further, his head heavy, his body aching from exhaustion. 

He kicked at a stone on the road, his voice low and shaking.

“Who am I kidding? No family, no money, no one to care if I vanish. She’s right, maybe I really am nothing. But she will regret ever betraying me.”

The stone clattered ahead of him. Hunger twisted his stomach, but he didn’t stop walking. The air smelled faintly of rain. He could barely see straight; the world tilted and blurred from the tears he had tried so hard to hide.

He stepped off the curb without looking.

Headlights flashed across his face as he walked into the road with hopes of getting back to the campus but then he staggered as he became so dizzy at every passing second.

A horn blared.

Someone shouted, “Hey! Watch out!”

Then came the screech of tires and the hard, deafening thud that ended everything.

The world went black instantly for Darren as a very huge vehicle slammed into him.

[ Two Hours Later — City General Hospital. ]

Outside the emergency corridor was David Rovers, the old man  whose car had hit Darren.

He paced back and forth, running a hand through his graying hair. His car keys jingled nervously in his palm.

“God, please let the boy live,” he murmured. “Please. I didn’t even see him till he was right there.”

A nurse pushed through the doors, peeling off her gloves. “Mr. Rovers?” she asked gently. “You were the one who brought the accident victim?”

David turned quickly. “Yes—yes, that’s me. How is he? Did he make it?”

She gave a small, tired smile. “He’s stable. Mild concussion, a deep cut on his chest, several bruises, but no internal bleeding. You got him here just in time.”

David’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank God,” he breathed. “I thought I’d killed him. I couldn’t have lived with that.”

The nurse laid a comforting hand on his arm. “Most people would have driven away. You did the right thing.”

He nodded, still pale. “Can I see him? Just for a moment?”

“Of course,” she said. “He’s unconscious but out of danger. Follow me.”

Inside the small hospital room, machines beeped beside the bed where Darren lay pale and still. His hair was damp with sweat; a white bandage crossed his chest, and bruises darkened the edges of his jaw.

David stopped at the bedside. “I’m so sorry, kid,” he whispered. “You came out of nowhere. I swear I wasn’t speeding.”

He stood there for a while, guilt chewing at him, until his eyes caught something unusual, just below the edge of the bandage, a faint curved scar, almost like a half-circle marking  Darren’s skin. He frowned and leaned closer.

“That’s strange…” he murmured. He gently lifted the edge of the bandage  to see more clearly. The mark wasn’t a wound—it was an old scar, shaped in a small crest with thin lines etched like rays.

“The Mark Of The Heir,” he muttered. His jaw fell in shock.

David froze. His heartbeat quickened. He knew that symbol.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head slowly. “That can’t be.”

He stared harder, his breathing uneven. It was the same symbol engraved on the old crest ring he had once guarded—a mark belonging only to the Hilton family. The lost heir’s mark.

He stepped back, shock tightening his throat. “Dear God,” he muttered. “All these years…”

The nurse peeked back into the room. “Sir? Is everything all right?”

David straightened quickly. “Y-yes. Everything’s fine. Thank you.”

When she left, he reached into his pocket with trembling fingers and pulled out his phone. It had been decades since he’d last called that number, but his hands seemed to dial it on their own.

After two rings, a deep, steady voice answered.

“Hello?”

David swallowed hard. “Sir… it’s David Rovers.”

There was silence on the line, then a cautious tone.

“David? My God, I haven’t heard that name in years. What’s going on?”

David’s voice shook. “Sir… I think we’ve found him.”

“Found who?” the old man’s voice sounded faint.

David took a breath that trembled. “The young master,” he said softly. “The heir… he’s alive. Your grandson!”

Silence… A sharp inhale from the other end.

“No way, my grandson is dead. There has been no trace of him ever since he was taken at the age of 23 years ago.” the voice demanded quietly.

“I saw the mark myself. The same crest—the half-circle. It’s him, sir. It has to be him.”

A long pause, heavy with disbelief, then the voice spoke again, firm and emotional.

“Send me the location, I will send Helena there. She’s the nanny who took care of my beloved grandson in the absence of his mother. If truly that young boy was my son, then I would be the happiest man alive.”

The call ended.

David lowered the phone slowly after sending the location, his pulse hammering in his ears. He looked back through the glass window into the hospital room where Darren lay unconscious, his chest rising and falling weakly under the thin blanket.

He stepped closer again, his eyes softening. “You’ve been through hell, kid,” he whispered. “Humiliated, beaten down, abandoned… and you have no idea who you really are.”

He paused, staring at the faint scar. “But you’ll know soon. Everything’s about to change.”

Darren stirred faintly, a weak sound escaping his lips—a half-formed word. Then his hand twitched and fell still again.

David exhaled shakily and turned toward the hallway. He pressed a hand to his chest, still stunned by what fate had thrown at him.

“After all these years,” he murmured, glancing back one last time, “the heir we thought was dead is lying right there.”