Chapter 56 — Chaotic HouseholdThe world did not welcome Luke gently.
It collapsed onto him.
Entering the PilotNoise hit first.
Shouting—overlapping, relentless. A television blared something cheap and loud. The smell of alcohol, old grease, unwashed clothes, and desperation mixed into a single, unmistakable stench.
Luke opened his eyes.
Ceiling first—cracked, water-stained, with a faint brown ring where a leak had once tried to rot its way through. The couch beneath him sagged like it had long since surrendered to gravity.
A bottle rolled off his chest and shattered on the floor.
"…shit."
The word left his mouth automatically, familiar and bitter.
Philip "Lip" Gallagher.
South Side Chicago.
Pilot episode.
Luke didn't sit up immediately. He stayed still, letting memory and sensation sync. This body was young—strong, wiry—but abused. Head pounding. Tongue dry. That buzzing ache behind the eyes that came not from one bad decision, but from years of them.
The System did not interrupt.
This world did not need explanation.
It needed survival.
Assessing the SituationLuke listened.
Arguments in the kitchen.
"Where's the money?"
"You spent it again!"
"I didn't spend all of it!"
A child laughed—too loud, too forced.
Someone else coughed, deep and wet.
Luke ran a quick internal check, the way he always did:
Timeframe: Morning, early
Resources: None
Authority: Zero
Threat Level: Constant
This wasn't a battlefield with guns and politics.
This was a slow war of entropy.
He sat up.
The living room was a wreck—laundry piles, empty cans, unpaid bills scattered like fallen leaves. A half-naked man—Frank Gallagher—lay sprawled in an armchair like a discarded coat, mouth open, snoring, clutching a bottle as if afraid it might escape.
Luke watched him for a second longer than necessary.
So this is the root.
The Gallagher FamilyThe kitchen argument grew louder.
Luke stood and moved toward it.
Fiona Gallagher was there first—thin, fierce, exhausted beyond her years. Hair tied back carelessly. Eyes sharp but fraying at the edges. She held a stack of bills in one hand and rage in the other.
"—can't keep doing this, Debbie! We need groceries, not glue!"
Debbie Gallagher, small but stubborn, clutched a plastic bag like a shield. Her face burned with defensive pride.
"It was on sale!"
At the table sat Ian Gallagher, quiet, watchful, already distant. He glanced up at Luke when he entered, eyes flickering with curiosity and concern.
From the hallway came Carl, far too young to be smiling about the chaos, and Liam, barely more than a toddler, sitting on the floor with something he absolutely should not have been chewing.
Luke absorbed it all in seconds.
This wasn't just dysfunction.
It was structureless survival.
Everyone was reacting. No one was leading.
And Lip?
Lip was supposed to be the smart one.
Lip's PositionFiona turned toward him immediately.
"Well?" she snapped. "You gonna say something or just stand there?"
Luke opened his mouth—and stopped.
This wasn't Michael Corleone.
This wasn't Jack Dawson.
Lip didn't give speeches.
He deflected. He joked. He avoided.
So Luke adjusted.
"Frank alive?" he asked flatly.
Fiona scoffed. "Unfortunately."
Frank snored louder from the living room, as if offended by the implication.
Luke nodded once.
Good. No immediate divergence.
Ian watched him more closely now.
"You okay, man?" Ian asked.
Luke met his eyes and shrugged, letting the familiar Gallagher mask settle in.
"Same shit. Different morning."
Ian accepted that.
Fiona didn't.
She rubbed her face with both hands. "I need help. Not genius commentary. Help."
Luke looked at the bills, the fridge with nothing but condiments, the kids orbiting disaster like it was normal gravity.
He felt something twist in his chest.
Not pity.
Recognition.
System Status (Silent)No panel appeared.
No Wish List yet.
This was the assessment phase—the System letting him drown just long enough to understand what kind of ocean this was.
Luke glanced once more at Frank, then back at Fiona.
"Alright," he said quietly.
"Let's get through today first."
It wasn't heroic.
It wasn't clever.
But in the Gallagher house, survival always started with today.
Outside, Chicago moved on like nothing was wrong.
Inside, Luke Gallagher—once Lu Kong of Wo Long village—stood at the edge of a life designed to break him.
And for the first time since entering the World of Remorse,
the enemy wasn't fate.
It was habit.