It was the twenty-fifth of December, 1989—a day wrapped in ribbons for some and barbed wire for others. Joy for the few who could afford it; another grey morning for the many who could not. And on this frozen dawn, a child was about to enter the world, destined for comfort, for a gilded name, and for something stranger still humming in his soul.
But the world does not deal in fairness. It never has.
Some are born rich, gliding in with silver names and silk sheets.
Some arrive in filth, unwanted, into hands too tired or too drunk to hold them. Some face the world beautiful, others come sickly and bent by small cruelties. Some wake with quick minds and easy words; others blink at the same light and find only fog. The world has never promised equality. It breeds winners and victims and calls the process "life."
Most land in the dull middle, healthy enough to work, smart enough to know what they'll never have. We fill the cities, pay the rent, carry the weight. We are the bricks under the palaces.
And this child, though stamped for something rare, would not begin in linen or lamplight. His first bed would be asphalt; his lullaby, the wind through broken glass. He would enter the world by violence, through a windscreen, into the night, into the trash.
Before fate swung the door, all was still well. The baby slept, warm in his mother's belly. The mother slept in the wide, soft kingdom of a king-size bed on the third floor of their Georgian townhouse—three storeys of polished privilege in one of Edinburgh's finest streets. Servants kept everything gleaming; the city below belonged to other people's worries. Sebastian Armitage, heir apparent to North Sea money, "managed" one of his father's rigs—enough prestige to impress dinner guests and irritate unions.
His wife, Amelia Lennox, cared about none of that. She was small, young-faced, and forever being mistaken for a sixth-former whenever a hoodie hid her curves—an embarrassment she endured with a teacher's thin smile. Her heart was simple and fierce: children. In her dreams she held a baby of her own while steering a classroom full of others—bright, brave, ridiculous. She corrected essays, crowned future Einsteins, and scolded a famous transfer pupil with a thick accent who kept demanding, "Give me the cookie!" Teaching threaded every dream. Wealth was a cushion, not a god.
The dream ended with a hot flood. Her waters broke.
Amelia jolted upright, one hand clamped to her belly, breath sharp. The silk strap of her nightgown slipped; she yanked it back with a hiss and scanned the doorway.
"Bloody hell, Seb! Sebastian, where are you?"
The house answered with silence—the kind she had learned to translate as: pub, cards, or both. She loved him. She fully intended to kill him.
"Sebastian!" she barked, summoning her best classroom tone—the one that froze entire rows. Another contraction rolled her under like a wave. She couldn't stand; the bed had her in its soft hold, and the baby had claimed the timetable.
Minutes dragged. Then a car coughed on the drive. A key scraped. The front door banged.
Seb came in smelling of cold air and Christmas whisky—tall, broad-shouldered, golden hair awry, blue eyes too pleased with themselves to belong to a cautious man.
Up the stairs he came, lazy as Sunday. "Why are you shouting like you've stubbed your toe?" he muttered, pushing into the room. "God, woman, your temper—"
"The baby is coming, you daft idiot! Call the hospital. I am not giving birth in this bed."
Seb blinked, processing. A small wheel turned behind his eyes. "Are you joking, lass?"
"No."
Something sober clicked into place. He straightened his cuffs—because habit is stronger than fear—ran a hand through his hair, and said briskly, "Right. Hospital."
Amelia squinted at him. "You're drunk. Get the neighbours. Or call emergency services. Now."
He flashed the grin that got him out of school detentions and into boardrooms. "Don't worry, love. I've got this."
Before she could argue again, he scooped her up—effortless, maddening—and carried her down through the warm house into the cold. The new saloon sat on the gravel like a smug black animal. He bundled her across the back seat, tossed his jacket over her legs, then—in a gesture that made her want to throttle him later—fished sunglasses from the glovebox and slid them on like an action hero.
"Sebastian," she warned.
"Trust me," he said, turning the key. The engine caught, a smooth expensive snarl. He shouldered the car onto Queensferry Road as if the city were his and speed limits were just friendly ideas.
Neither of them wore a belt. Snow sifted the empty streets. Edinburgh at not-yet-six lay quiet—bakers, nurses, night-bus drivers awake; everyone else inside, making Christmas gentle.
In the car it wasn't. Contractions came fierce and close. Amelia's small voice went sharp enough to cut glass; Seb's big voice tried to fill the space and failed. Tyres sang as they crested Dean Bridge, engine rising. Another wave hit her, hard, tidal. She doubled, breath ragged, the jacket clutched to her thighs.
A sound escaped her—soft, feral. And then, just like that, the child slid free into her hands, hot and shocking and perfect.
"Oh my God," she whispered, half laugh, half sob. "He's a boy. He's beautiful. Sebastian, look—it's your son."
But the first thing the baby heard was not his mother. Somewhere inside the new thing, something older spoke, deep and certain:
"With your birth comes a solemn vow: you may have anything, if you are willing to sacrifice everything to gain it. Power and freedom are yours to purchase in blood—through the wars you wage, the losses you suffer, and the pain you endure. And when darkness finds you, only your ambition will remain to guide you. Awaken, chosen one, and face your destiny."
Sebastian—Christmas-drunk by degrees, still stupidly charmed by luck—didn't hear any of it. He rolled onto Dean Bridge and, of course, looked back, grinning. "Hey there, little man. Welcome to—"
The wheel drifted.
The car kissed ice, shouldered left, hopped the kerb, bit sky, and met the parapet like a closing door. Glass turned to weather. For a heartbeat the saloon rode the wall, then pitched and cartwheeled, tearing the night open.
No belts. Bodies followed math. The young father hit the wheel, then the exploding screen, and went out into the orange cold. The young mother twisted to shield the child, smacked the headliner, and followed. A bright wedge of windscreen skimmed the umbilical—the cleanest, cruelest cut—and nicked her wrist. Reflex opened her hand. The baby rose higher, beyond the graceful arc his parents would never finish.
Time slowed to decide what it would keep.
Something cold and bloodless clicked on behind brand-new eyes:
> FIRST BLOOD. Soul System activated. Welcome to the economy of death.
DOUBLE KILL — INDIRECT. Cause linkage: distraction during parturition → decisive.
Targets: Amelia Lennox (primary teacher). Sebastian Armitage (junior North Sea ops).
Valuation (direct harvest = ISV + NLV):
• Amelia — ISV 1,500 SP + NLV 6,000 SP → 7,500 SP credited.
• Sebastian — ISV 1,450 SP + NLV 330,000 SP → 331,450 SP credited.
Base chain total: 338,950 SP.
FIRST HUMAN SOULS — feat unlocked. Multiplier ×10 applied.
Catastrophic birth anomaly detected, adjusting to system baseline — circumstance credit: total rounded down.
Lifetime credits available: 3,000,000 SP.
Transaction complete.
No warmth. No comfort. Only a ledger that itemizes value in and closes the books. Welcome to the economy of death.
> CLASS ANALYSIS: small frame; stealth bias; tool-use potential under stress.
CLASS: ROGUE — Level 10 (lifetime earnings surpassed tier thresholds).
Note: Levels unlock from lifetime SP earned. Spending does not reduce level.
And then the body updated to match the new totals, also keeping the babies gender in mind.
Bones took on a mineral sheen; tendons braided; muscle fibres aligned like a plan. Reflex arcs shortened; eyes began tracking at 150 frames a second. Reaction time slid toward ~140 ms. Strength settled around STR 30 (bench ~120 kg, carry ~110 kg); Toughness around TOU 31 (fall/impact tolerance beyond sane); Dexterity spiked to DEX 41 (movement speed +20%, cutting precision +41%); Perception tuned to PER 29 (proto danger-sense, predictive mapping). He was still an infant—small, warm, astonished—but dense with impossible grace.
Mid-air, he spread his tiny hands as if greeting the sky and let out a thin, fierce cry: "awoo."
Slate rushed up. He struck a townhouse roof, skipped like a stone, and dropped clean into a council-issue green wheelie bin by the gate with a hollow bang. The lid clapped shut. Snow dusted the hinge marks and made the night tidy again.
Down in the dark plastic, the baby did not cry. Rogue Lv.10 came with a small, mean calm: a body that understood cold and chose smaller breaths. Icy blue eyes opened to nothing, then everything, then nothing again. He sniffed, wrinkled at the sour tang of old nappies, and made a thoughtful little sound:
"Hmm."
The System, having paid, said nothing more. It kept the books and waited to see what the newborn would buy with three million points—three million pounds in all but name, enough to outfit or summon a small army, enough to start a very different kind of life.