The Lifespan Wealth System

Chapter 8. Traces of the Same Man

Morning at Vancouver General Hospital felt like a broken simulation. Axel woke with nausea churning his stomach. He tried to sit up, but his joints felt stiff, as if the hinges of his bones had rusted solid. He glanced at the mirror on the wall. His white hair looked even more real under the cold neon lights, emphasizing the lines of aging now permanently etched into his face.

He reached for his phone on the bedside table. The GPS coordinates to an old downtown parking structure were still blinking. The message felt like a knife pressed against his throat.

“Axel? Where are you going?”

Arlo’s voice broke the silence. His friend entered carrying coffee, his eyes red from lack of sleep. Arlo froze when he saw Axel forcibly pulling the IV line from his arm.

“I have to go, Arlo. Something urgent came up.” Axel said shortly. His voice was heavy, far deeper than it used to be.

“Urgent? Look at yourself! You just cheated death!” Arlo slammed the shopping bag onto the table. “Elara refuses to talk to you, your mother just fell asleep after crying all night, and you want to run off? Have you lost your mind?”

Axel put on his jacket with stiff, mechanical movements. “This is about everyone’s safety. Just trust me this once.”

“Safety?” Arlo laughed bitterly, stepping in front of the door. “What kind of future turns you into a grandfather overnight? Tell me, Xel. What cult did you join?”

Axel looked at Arlo sharply, a cold gaze he had never possessed before. “Stop overthinking it, Arlo.”

Without waiting for a reply, Axel shoved past him and stepped out. His head spun violently. As he passed an ATM in the lobby, he felt a surge of his system’s presence vibrating wildly, as if the machine were a magnet pulling at the last scraps of his vitality. He wiped a thin nosebleed with the back of his hand and kept walking.

The downtown parking structure looked like the remains of a forgotten civilization. Cracked concrete, damp moss, and the stench of stale gasoline assaulted his senses, which had grown unnaturally sharp. Axel climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. His footsteps echoed hollowly, feeding his rising paranoia.

On a central concrete pillar, he saw a roughly carved symbol, a broken circle with intersecting lines at its center. Beneath it was a darkened stain of old blood.

“You’re ten minutes late,” a voice emerged from the darkness behind the pillar.

Axel spun around. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

A man stepped forward. His appearance was unsettling. He wore an expensive suit that hung loosely on his gaunt frame. His face was smooth, his skin taut like a man in his late twenties, but his eyes told the truth. They were dull, clouded, and filled with suffering, the eyes of someone who had lived nearly a century.

“You can smell it, can’t you?” the man said with a thin smile that never reached his eyes. “The stench of realizing that a full bank account cannot buy a single clean breath.”

Axel fought the wave of dizziness. “You sent that message. You have … this system too?”

The man let out a dry chuckle. “My name is Goran. And I’m not here to be your friendly conversationalist.”

Goran circled Axel like a predator assessing prey. “Your system … that series … it should have died two years ago with its previous host. I was surprised to see it active again, and on a harbor loser like you.”

“The previous host?” Axel’s heart pounded. “You mean someone else had the system?”

“Yes, including me.” Goran stopped inches from Axel’s face and inhaled deeply. “So fresh. Your lifespan still smells ‘sweet’ because you’ve only just started using it. Unlike mine.”

Goran pulled back his sleeve. Beneath the expensive suit, the skin of his arm was blistered and gray, as if his flesh were rotting while his face remained young.

“My system is broken. It glitched. It keeps taking my lifespan but no longer gives me money. I’m trapped in a body that refuses to die, but also refuses to heal,” Goran hissed, his face twisting with hatred.

“You’re carrying the latest series, Axel. I can feel it from here. Your system has a ‘Balance’ protocol. Mine? Mine is just a black hole that finally clogged because I forgot what it feels like to be human. I still want to live. There’s something I haven’t finished. The only way to fix my system is to consume the core of one that’s still active.”

Axel stepped back, fully alert now. “You want to take it from me?”

“Simple enough.” Goran produced a small knife made of black stone, similar to the sacred stone Axel had once touched. The blade radiated lethal certainty, impossible to evade. “A system can transfer if its host surrenders. Or if the host is forcibly destroyed.”

At once, Axel’s system panel, silent until now, flared into a pulsing blood red.

[WARNING: EXTERNAL THREAT DETECTED]

[PREDATORY SYSTEM IN CLOSE PROXIMITY]

“Don’t be afraid, Axel.” Goran advanced with deadly steps. “I’ll tell your mother you died a hero. That’s better than letting her watch you turn into a wrinkled monster like me.”

Axel wanted to run, but his feet felt fused to the concrete. Goran was not just a physical threat, he was a vision of Axel’s future if he kept letting guilt dictate his system transactions.

Suddenly, Axel’s vision washed white. A new system command surfaced at the edge of his consciousness.

[ACTIVATE DEFENSE MODE: THREAT ANALYSIS COMPLETE]

[COST: 5 YEARS OF REMAINING LIFESPAN]

[DO YOU ACCEPT?]

Ten years. If Axel pressed that button, he might instantly become a man in his seventies. But if he refused, Goran’s black knife would end his contract permanently.

“Choose no, Axel!” Goran shouted, lunging forward. “Die now and it’ll only hurt briefly before you’re forgotten. You’re tired of living, aren’t you? End it now!”

Axel stared at Goran’s deranged face, then remembered his mother’s face and Elara’s tears. Rage and the instinct to survive crushed his fear. He would not die in this filthy parking structure.

His trembling finger touched the virtual “YES” button just as the tip of Goran’s knife grazed his neck.

An overwhelming cold slammed into Axel’s heart, followed by the sound of bones cracking and echoing through the parking structure. Axel screamed, not from the blade, but from the sensation of his youth being violently torn from his pores in a matter of seconds.

“I haven’t claimed my happiness yet. I will not give up.”