The Black Card System

The Card Awakens

CHAPTER 3 — “THE CARD AWAKENS”

Noah slipped back into the hotel’s back stairwell and let the heavy door fall shut behind him. The noise from the hotel faded instantly, leaving only the hum of the old fluorescent light above his head. He sank onto the cold step, breathing slowly as he pulled the metallic card from his pocket.

The faint red glow was still there.

He turned it over in his hand. “What exactly are you?” he murmured, as if the card could hear him.

The glow sharpened. Before Noah could blink, the light burst outward like a spark leaping from metal. It shot up his arm with a jolt that made his breath catch. His vision blurred, and for a moment, it felt like the stairwell vanished completely.

A voice echoed inside his head it wasn’t not loud and didn’t sound human either, it was the voice from last night and it was clear enough to make his spine lock.

“Memory transfer initiated.”

Noah gripped the railing beside him, but the world was already dissolving around him. Images flooded his mind, it was so fast like lightning and it felt like he was watching a movie from a visual reality.

He saw a man running through the woods at night, stumbling through mud while headlights chased him. There were gunshots. The sound of breaking branches. The man clutched the very same card Noah held now, protecting it like it was the last thing he had.

Another scene rushed in a room filled with screens, maps, encrypted files, and a symbol marked everywhere: a rising flame surrounded by a ring of iron. Project Ashfall.

Noah’s heartbeat steadied even as the memories continued dragging him deeper.

He saw a table surrounded by powerful, well-dressed figures. Not their faces, only the shadows they cast. Names were spoken but Noah couldn’t get a catch of it , they were powerful names that he had heard before but Noah to understood they represented, it was seven families so deeply rooted in the country’s wealth and politics that they practically controlled its heartbeat. Their influence stretched through security, military contracts, technology, land, banking, and public charity. The kind of power no normal person saw, but everyone unknowingly lived under but there was one particular name that was familiar.

The Lewis family’s shadow sat right at the center, darker than the rest.

The memories shifted again. Noah saw twisted metal, flashing police lights, and a crushed sedan pushed under the headline of a “simple road accident.” Behind it lay bribes, signatures, erased evidence, and hushed conversations, he didn’t quiet understood what it was but there was some familiarity and suddenly ….He recognized the car,he recognized the date and even the people inside , he saw little Noah running around and crying for help .

His parents’ last day on earth .

His fingers tightened around the card until his knuckles whitened. For years, he had accepted the official story without questioning it. Now, standing in a dusty stairwell with someone else’s memories pushing into his mind, the truth fell into place in a way that hurt more than any insult Tara’s family had thrown at him.

His parents weren’t unlucky.

They weren’t careless.

They were removed, quietly and intentionally, by people who hid behind charity events and polished reputations.

And he had lived under their roof, silent and obedient, without knowing any of it but still this memory was unclear to him but somehow if it showed it to him and that meant only one thing :

These families were connected to what happed to his parents and especially The Lewis’s family

The visions faded slowly and Noah found himself staring at the card again. His breathing was steady now , it was too calm for everything he had just seen.

New text spread across the card’s surface as if it had been waiting for his realization.

“Mission system activated.”

Noah frowned slightly. He didn’t fully understand how it worked, but the explanation unfolded in his mind anyway,

The card held financial resources, information, and operations built for someone who had been wronged deeply enough to carry out a mission of justice. Or revenge. It didn’t choose based on strength or status. It chose based on suffering.

“So that’s why it came to me,” Noah whispered.

The glow brightened, forming one last message:

“If you accept, you cannot return to who you were.”

He stared at the words, letting them sit with him. He didn’t answer, not right away. It was strange, he thought he would feel fear, anger, confusion… something loud. But instead, a quiet clarity settled inside him. His old life had been falling apart for years. Maybe this wasn’t a beginning so much as the moment he finally opened his eyes.

A faint mechanical click pulled him back to the stairwell.

Noah lifted his head and started making his way outside

The CCTV camera above him turned sharply in his direction.

Another camera near the exit moved as well.

Both lenses adjusted, focusing on him as if something or someonehad suddenly realized where he was.

The red recording light blinked faster.

Noah slipped the card into his pocket and rose to his fewr

“Looks like someone’s already looking for me,” he murmured.