2026-01-11 18:09:29
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 19: The Triple Suite
The silence that follows a jackhammer is heavier than the noise itself.For the last hour, the world had been a violent symphony of grinding metal, shattering concrete, and the guttural shouting of men who communicated primarily in grunts and obscenities. The Contractor’s Guild had torn through the fourth floor of the Rusty Bolt Motel like a pack of rabid wolves eating a carcass.And then, abruptly, it stopped.The last generator sputtered and died. The last sledgehammer hit the floor with a dull thud.Dust hung in the air. It wasn't a mist; it was a solid entity, a white fog that tasted of chalk and ancient insulation. It coated my eyelashes. It settled in the weave of my celestial hoodie. It turned the puddle of water on the floor into a thick, grey paste.I sat up on the mattress. My ears were ringing. A high, sharp whine that sounded like a mosquito trapped in my brain."Is it over?" I asked. My voice sounded muffled, deadene
CHAPTER 18: The Wake-Up Call
I had barely closed my eyes. The adrenaline from stalking Henderson through the rain was fading, replaced by a leaden heaviness in my limbs. The mattress beneath me felt like it was made of concrete blocks wrapped in sandpaper. But I didn't care. I curled onto my side, ignoring the damp squelch of my sock, and let the darkness take me.I drifted.I dreamed of a bed made of clouds. I dreamed of silence.The dream shattered.It wasn't a noise. It was a physical assault. The entire building lurched to the side, throwing me six inches into the air. I landed hard on the mattress, biting my tongue.The floor vibrated. It wasn't a subtle tremble; it was a bone-rattling shake that made my teeth chatter. Dust rained down from the ceiling in thick, choking sheets."We're under attack!" Anya screamed.I cracked one eye open. The room was spinning.Anya was already up. She was pressed into the corner where the walls met, he
CHAPTER 17: The Nickel Credit
I couldn't sleep.It wasn't the lumpy mattress or the dripping pipe or the fact that I was currently occupying a room that was technically a crime scene of architectural violence. It was the silence.Mr. Henderson had run out of the room with the frantic energy of a man whose heart was about to explode, leaving a vacuum in his wake. And in that vacuum, my paranoia began to grow.I lay there, staring at the exposed wiring in the ceiling, and I did the math.I had given a man with a forty-year debt a coin worth five thousand credits. I had sent him out into a city where people killed for shoes, unarmed and unhinged, to find heavy machinery."He's going to get mugged," I whispered to the damp air.If he got mugged, he lost the Nickel. If he lost the Nickel, he couldn't pay the contractors. If he couldn't pay the contractors, my room stayed a dusty box with a draft.And I really, really hated the draft.I sat up. An
CHAPTER 16: The Morning Audit
The seeped through the cracks in the boarded-up windows and the jagged, axe-hewn hole in the wall like grey dishwater filling a sink. There was no warmth in it. Just a pale, sickly illumination that revealed exactly how much dust I had inhaled during the night.I woke up coughing.The taste of pulverized drywall coated my tongue. It was gritty and chalky, like I’d been chewing on a blackboard. I lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling of Room 402. The glow-in-the-dark stars the previous tenants had stuck there were now just faint, pathetic smudges of green plastic against the water-stained plaster.My back hurt.The mattress I was lying on wasn’t a mattress. It was a torture device disguised as foam. It had a topography of lumps and springs that had spent the last eight hours digging into my kidneys with personal vendettas."Ugh," I groaned.The sound resonated in my chest, a deep rumble that felt too big for the room.I tried to stretch. It was an instinct, a divine habit f
CHAPTER 15: The Open Concept
The problem with walls in Sector Z isn't that they are strong. It’s that they are filled with the history of everyone who has ever screamed, coughed, or wept against them.When Mr. Henderson swung the axe, he didn't just break drywall. He released ghosts.The axe head bit into the plaster, burying itself deep. Dust puffed out like a dying breath—a cloud of white powder that tasted of chalk, asbestos, and forty years of disappointment."Expanding!" Henderson shrieked. He wrenched the handle back and forth. His shoulder popped with a wet, sickening sound, but he didn't stop. "Creating flow! Creating volume!"He tore a chunk of the wall down. Lath and plaster clattered to the floor, exposing the skeletal wooden studs underneath.I sat on the mattress in Room 401, shielding my eyes with my arm. My celestial hoodie was turning gray. The air was so thick with particulate matter I could chew it."Mr. Henderson," I coughed. "I think that’s load-bearing."He didn't hear me. He was in a trance.
CHAPTER 14: The Presidential Suite
The journey to the fourth floor was an exercise in auditory misery.Every step I took on the rotting staircase produced a sound that was less like wood creaking and more like a dying animal gasping for its final breath. My knees, unaccustomed to the indignity of gravity without divine reinforcement, popped in sync with the floorboards. My left sock, still sodden from the puddle outside, made a wet squelch inside my sneaker."This is not a staircase," I muttered, gripping a banister that felt sticky with decades of unknown residues. "This is a vertical tetanus hazard."Anya was two steps ahead of me. She moved silently, stepping on the edges of the treads where the wood was strongest. She kept glancing back at me, her eyes wide and rimmed with red. She looked like she was waiting for me to explode. Or maybe she was waiting for the building to explode."Quiet," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The walls here are thin. If people hear you complaining, they’ll think you’re weak. If th
You may also like
Valkyrie Black
Drew Archeron22.5K viewsRise of the Revenge System
Qin Li20.4K viewsMastering the fates with Role-play system
De_law1719.4K viewsUnparalleled Demon System: Tales of the Lost Demon
Dark Crafter21.2K viewsVillainous Sect Leader
Peace1.4K viewsIncredible Actor Nicholas Shane
Jolie Kim2.0K viewsDuel of systems
Maguire351.6K viewsThe Bullied Student's Demonic Revenge System
Campoccino7.7K views