The porch creaked the same way it always had.
Paint peeling. Wood worn thin by too many boots, too many nights, too many bad decisions survived by inches.
Luke sat on the top step, elbows on his knees, watching the street breathe.
South Side Chicago hadn't changed.
It didn't need to.
What had changed was who stood in it.
Across the yard, Lip Gallagher leaned against the fence, coffee in hand. No shake. No rush. No hunger in his eyes. Just awareness—steady, earned.
Sober.
Wealthy.
Loved.
Real.
Luke felt it then—the subtle shift. Like a weight being handed back.
Memories overlapped. Childhood scraped knees. SAT books. The smell of the house after rain. The sound of Fiona laughing in the kitchen. The guilt. The anger. The brilliance that had always been there, just buried.
Lip blinked.
Once.
And the overlap ended.
Luke exhaled slowly.
Control transferred.
The world didn't glitch. Didn't stutter. It simply accepted the correction.
Lip looked down at his hands—calloused, steady—and smiled faintly, like someone waking up after a long, necessary dream.
He didn't question it.
That was the final proof.
Luke stood.
The porch didn't creak this time.
He looked once more at the house. At the door. At the life that no longer needed intervention.
This wasn't death.
This was completion.
System Final Log:
World: World of Remorse — STABILIZED
Protagonist Role: External Corrective Consciousness
Exit Condition: MET
Residual Influence: NONE
Karma Balance: CLOSED
The System didn't pull him.
It released him.
Luke faded—not as light, not as smoke, but as relevance.
A chapter ending because the story no longer required it.
On the porch, Lip took a sip of coffee.
Inside the house, someone laughed.
Life went on.
As it should.