Rise of The Martian Heir

Chapter 1: Dustlicker

Mars isn’t red anymore.

Three hundred years ago the Garden Corporation turned it green. They seeded the deserts, they lit Venus up like a second sun so crops never sleep, and they built Wakedah City in the middle of it all. On one side of the city is the Heights, where billionaires live in mansions with air that smells clean. On the other side of the big bridge is the sprawl, where everyone else lives stacked in towers like Harp Apartment.

Raven Well lived in the sprawl.

He was nineteen, blond, blue-eyed, and worked two jobs to pay rent for room 212-9. He had been an orphan since he was a baby. He had no family, no money, and a long history of getting beaten up for no reason.

Tonight was one of those nights.

He lay on his back behind Harp Apartment, Section C, where the cameras had been broken for years. Blood was soaking through his cheap green Melo delivery shirt. His stomach felt like fire where the knife had gone in.

Jax stood over him, laughing. Jax had bullied him since the orphanage.

“Hahaha, serve you right, you craterborn dustlicker!” Jax said. Then he turned and walked away, his boots clicking on the concrete. He didn’t even look back.

Raven tried to breathe. The pain was too much. The streetlight above him flickered.

“Oh shrak,” he whispered. “I’m gonna die here.”

He stared up at the sky. Venus Light made the night bright, even at 3 a.m. You could see the big orbital ring Garden built, a silver line cutting across the stars.

“Why is it always me?” His voice cracked. “I just wanted someone to love me.”

He felt stupid for saying it out loud. But he was dying. He was allowed to be stupid.

Then the pain stopped.

Just stopped. One second it was tearing him apart, the next it was gone, like someone flipped a switch in his body.

Raven blinked. He was confused. He found his cracked phone on the ground next to him. The screen said 3:00 a.m.

He touched his stomach. His shirt was wet and sticky with blood, but the skin underneath didn’t hurt when he pressed it.

He thought about dying for real. About starting over in a different reality where Raven Well wasn’t a punching bag. Where a girl would look at him and smile first.

Then a new pain hit. Not from the knife. This was deep inside his bones, like something was trying to crawl out.

“Pain! Somebody help me!” he shouted, but his voice was weak. In Wakedah at 3 a.m., nobody helps. People just close their windows.

He heard footsteps coming closer.

Raven forced his head up. His neck hurt.

A woman walked toward him through the dark alley. That was wrong. She wore a clean white and blue corporate dress, the kind executives wore in the Heights. Her brown hair was braided like Queen Tharsis on the money. Her eyes were violet, a color you didn’t see much.

She did not belong behind Harp Apartment.

Raven’s hand found his phone. He threw it at her without thinking.

“Piss off, you robber!” he yelled.

The throw was weak. The phone just bounced off her expensive shoe.

She didn’t get mad. She didn’t even flinch. She just knelt down next to him in the dirty alley and put her hand on his bloody stomach.

Her hand was hot. Not normal warm. Like a heater.

“Shhh,” she said. Her voice was calm. Not fake-nice. Just calm, like deep water. “Let me help you. But you must become my son-in-law for my daughter.”

Raven stared at her. He was bleeding out and she was talking about marriage. It made no sense.

“No,” he spat. He could taste blood in his mouth. “Let me rot. Let me die here where I belong.”

“Close your eyes, Raven,” she said softly.

He froze. She knew his name. How?

He was too tired to fight anymore. He closed his eyes.

He thought he would die. Instead, he woke up.

He was not in the alley. He was in a bed so big it could fit his whole apartment room inside it. The sheets were white and smelled like flowers. His stomach was wrapped in clean white bandages. There was zero pain.

“What the ash and ruin?” he said out loud.

He sat up fast. He was in a massive bedroom. Light came through windows that were taller than two men. The walls had gold trim. Everywhere he looked he saw the Garden Corporation emblem — a tree inside a circle.

On a table in the middle of the room was a set of clothes, neatly folded. A white shirt and red pants made from fabric that looked expensive.

Raven realized he was naked under the blanket. He jumped up and pulled the clothes on fast. His hands were shaking.

His body felt fine. Perfect, even. He had been stabbed an hour ago. He had felt the knife go in.

He had to get out. He had to get home.

He opened the bedroom door and ran. The hallway was long, with a cold stone floor. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, throwing light everywhere like frozen rain.

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself. “Where am I?”

He ran down a wide staircase. At the bottom was a set of doors at least ten meters tall, with the Garden tree carved into them.

He reached for the handle.

“Young Master Raven Well, where do you want to go?” a voice said right behind him.

Raven jumped and spun around, his heart hammering.

An old man in a perfect black butler suit stood there. He had grey hair tied in a man bun and a trimmed grey beard. He looked kind, which was strange.

“How do you know my name?” Raven asked.

“I am Sebastian, young master,” the old man said and gave a deep bow. He held out a thin black phone. “A communication device for you.”

Raven didn’t take it.

“Young master, please,” Sebastian said. Then he did something crazy. He dropped to his knees on the hard stone floor and held the phone up to Raven with both hands, like Raven was a king.

“Voidspit, don’t do that!” Raven said. He grabbed Sebastian’s shoulders and tried to pull him up, but the old man was solid as a rock and wouldn’t move.

“Okay! Fine!” Raven snatched the phone from his hands. “But I’m not a young master. I’m nobody.”

Sebastian stood up in one smooth motion. “As you say, young master.”

Raven pushed past him and shoved at the giant doors. They opened by themselves, silently.

Outside, the air was different. Clean. It didn’t smell like smog or fried noodles. He was surrounded by huge mansions, each one with high walls and a Garden emblem on the gate.

He was in South Wakedah Heights. The billionaire sector. He’d only ever seen it in ads.

He started walking fast down the empty, tree-lined road. He saw a sign: Harp Apartment, 5 km. The arrow pointed toward the big bridge that connected the Heights to the city.

“Five kilometers? I have to walk?” he complained to no one.

He pulled out the phone Sebastian gave him. It was blank. He needed to d******d PayApp to call a taxi.

*VROOOOM!*

A loud engine roar made the ground shake.

A red Ferrari 458 Spider pulled up right next to him and stopped. It was his exact dream car. He had a poster of it on his wall.

Raven couldn’t stop himself. He reached out and touched the door. He actually smiled.

The window rolled down. Sebastian was driving.

“Young master. This car is for you. Please drive it,” Sebastian said.

“Since when do I have a car?” Raven asked, his brain not working.

“Today, young master,” Sebastian answered like it was normal.

Raven just stared at him. “...I don’t know how to drive.”

“Then allow me to drive you to your apartment,” Sebastian said, and the passenger door clicked open. “And I beg you, please consider my madam’s request. Become her son-in-law.”

Raven’s stomach dropped. “What’s the catch? Do you want my organs? Nobody just gives a Ferrari to a dustlicker like me.”

Sebastian looked away for the first time. “I cannot say, young master.”

Raven got in the car anyway. He needed to get home. He fumbled with the seatbelt.

“Fine. Drive. Fast. To Harp Apartment. I have work,” he said.

“Of course, young master! Brace yourself!” Sebastian said with a tiny smirk.

The car didn’t just drive, it launched. Raven was slammed back into the leather seat as they flew across the bridge toward the city.

“Sebastian! Not so fast!” Raven yelled, grabbing the door handle so hard his knuckles turned white.

Sebastian just shifted gears and went faster. The engine screamed.

In just a few minutes, they stopped in front of the giant, white, ugly Harp Apartment tower. It was 500 meters tall. Outside, vendors were selling food and kids were playing. This was home. This was normal.

“Why do you know where I live?” Raven asked as he stumbled out of the car.

Sebastian’s face became serious. “Sorry, young master Raven. We have watched you for a very long time.”

Watched him? Watched him get beaten up? Watched him bleed in alleys?

Raven felt cold. He didn’t want the answer.

“Thanks for the ride. Tell your madam thanks,” he said quickly and walked away fast.

He hurried into his building, took the elevator to the 212th floor, and walked down his hallway.

Then he saw her. His crush. The pretty blond girl from Melo who he’d liked for three years but never talked to.

Their eyes met. And she smiled at him. A real, warm smile.

Raven’s heart beat like a drum. He was so busy staring at her that he wasn’t watching where he was going.

He walked straight into a big man’s shoulder.

“Ops, sorry!” Raven said.

“It’s okay,” the man said and kept walking.

Raven looked down and saw a wallet on the floor where the man had been. He picked it up.

He needed money badly. His rent was due tomorrow. He could just take the cash inside. The man would never know. The thought was quick and ugly and tempting.

“Sir! Sir! Your wallet!” Raven shouted before he could think more. He ran and shoved it into the man’s hand.

The man grabbed it. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I need this money for my father at the hospital!” He kissed the wallet and ran off.

Raven’s eyes stung. He wiped them and felt like an idiot, but also a little proud.

He went into his tiny apartment, 212-9, and went straight to the bathroom. He unwrapped the bloody bandage from his stomach.

He looked in the mirror.

There was nothing there. No cut. No scar. Not even a bruise. His skin was smooth and perfect, like he had never been stabbed at all.

“This is crazy,” he whispered.

He took a long, hot shower, scrubbing his skin hard like he could wash the whole night off.

‘Why do people always bully me? Why do they hurt me? What did I do wrong?’ he thought. The same questions he’d asked his whole life.

After, he put on his green Melo uniform. He combed his blond hair back and looked at his own blue eyes in the mirror.

“Whatever happens,” he told his reflection, “I’m not giving up on life this time.”

He checked Sebastian’s phone. 11:35 p.m. He was already late for his night delivery shift.

He left his apartment and headed to work, but his mind wasn’t on packages.

It was on the woman with violet eyes who healed him with a touch.

It was on the butler who called him “young master.”

It was on the words “son-in-law” and “we have watched you for a very long time.”

He didn’t know that his life as a poor delivery boy was already over.

He didn’t know that tomorrow at work, a customer would refuse to pay 600 credits for a parcel and punch him in the face. And he didn’t know that tomorrow, for the first time, he would see a small, glowing red exclamation mark floating in the air above that man’s head.