In his memory, the last moments were filled with the rhythmic, comforting thwack-thwack-thwack of a diamond pickaxe hitting digital stone. He had been deep in a subterranean cavern, a world of blocks and logic, finishing a cathedral that had taken him six months to design. Then, a sharp scent of ozone, a blinding flash from his monitor, and a searing pain that felt like his soul was being pulled through a needle's eye.
Now, there was only the smell of damp drywall and the low, gutteral hum of a distant city.
He opened his eyes and immediately winced. The ceiling above him was a map of yellow water stains and peeling grey paint. He wasn't in his ergonomic gaming chair. He wasn't in his clean, suburban apartment.
He tried to sit up, and a wave of nausea rolled over him. His limbs felt heavy, uncoordinated, and thin—wrongly thin. He dragged himself toward a cracked full-length mirror leaning against a stack of plastic crates.
The man in the reflection was a stranger.
He looked to be about nineteen or twenty. His skin was the color of parchment, stretched tight over high, aristocratic cheekbones. His hair was a dark, messy silver, and his eyes—a piercing, cold blue—looked like they belonged to someone who hadn't slept in a week. Despite the grime and the hollowed-out look of hunger, the face was undeniably handsome. It was the kind of face that belonged on a billboard, not in a slum.
Then, the memories hit him. They didn't arrive like a story; they arrived like a physical blow to the back of his head.
His name was Alexander Rodgraim.
This world was modern, familiar, and utterly indifferent. It was a world of smartphones, high-speed rail, and sprawling corporate empires. But in this reality, the game he had spent his life mastering—the simple joy of building a world from nothing—didn't exist. There was no Minecraft here. There was only the "Rodgraim Group," one of the most powerful conglomerates on the continent.
Alexander was the youngest son of the Chairman, the "unfortunate mistake" of a brief affair with a woman the family had spent millions to bury. For nineteen years, he had lived in a gilded cage of resentment, tolerated but never loved.
Three months ago, his father had finally scrubbed the slate clean.
Alexander had been framed for a theft he didn't commit—a clumsy, obvious setup by his half-brothers—and used as an excuse for his father to officially "disown" him. He had been stripped of his name, his trust fund, and his future. They had dumped him here, in the District 9 slums, with a single month's rent paid in a cramped, ten-square-meter apartment and a suitcase of clothes that were now far too expensive-looking for his surroundings.
"So that's how it is," Alexander whispered. His voice was raspy, unused.
In his old life, he was a nobody who built empires in his basement. In this life, he was a prince who had been thrown into the trash.
He stood up, his legs shaking, and began a grim inventory of his new life.
The apartment was a coffin. There was a kitchenette with a single burner that didn't spark, a sink that dripped a rhythmic plink... plink... plink, and a mattress on the floor that smelled of old dust.
He searched his pockets. He found a cheap, prepaid burner phone with a cracked screen and a wallet made of fine Italian leather. He opened the wallet.
Inside was a single twenty-dollar bill and a few copper coins.
He checked the phone. A notification from a banking app flashed: Account Balance: $4.12.
The crushing weight of reality settled into his chest. In his previous life, if he was low on resources, he could just go out and harvest them. He knew how to build, how to manage systems, how to survive on nothing. But those were digital skills. Here, the "resources" were locked behind glass towers and iron-clad laws.
He walked to the window and pushed it open. The hinge groaned, protesting the movement.
District 9 was a canyon of rusted fire escapes and neon signs for cheap synthetic noodles. Far in the distance, piercing the smoggy horizon, stood the Rodgraim Plaza—a literal monolith of glass and steel that seemed to mock him from the clouds.
His stomach gave a violent, painful cramp. It wasn't a "hunger bar" blinking red on a screen. It was a sharp, acidic gnawing that made his head spin.
He needed to move. If he stayed in this room, he would become just another statistic in the District 9 eviction reports.
He found a black hoodie in his suitcase—the most "normal" thing he owned—and pulled it on, flipping the hood up to hide his silver hair and those unmistakable Rodgraim eyes. He stepped out into the hallway.
The air in the building was thick with the smell of cheap cooking oil and ammonia. He descended the stairs, each step echoing in the narrow, dim stairwell.
On the street level, the city roared. It was a symphony of sirens, screeching tires, and the constant, low-frequency hum of the elevated trains. He felt small, being a ghost in a crowd of thousands was a terrifying transition.
He found a small corner grocery store. The windows were reinforced with iron bars, and the neon sign above the door flickered: LOU'S 24/7.
Inside, the lighting was a harsh, flickering fluorescent. He walked to the back, eyes scanning the prices. A loaf of bread: $3.50. A tin of tuna: $2.10.
He did the math in his head. If he bought this, he'd have less than twenty dollars to last him... how long? He didn't even know when his rent was due.
"Hey, kid. You buying or just staring?"
The voice came from behind the counter. A man with a neck like a bull and skin the texture of an old football was watching him. Lou.
"Just looking," Alexander said, his voice stronger now, though it lacked the arrogance it should have had.
He picked up the cheapest caloric option: a pack of instant noodles and a bottle of water. As he walked to the counter, his eyes caught a discarded newspaper on a stack of crates.
The headline read: "RODGRAIM TECH ANNOUNCES REVOLUTIONARY INFRASTRUCTURE BID." Below it was a picture of his eldest half-brother, Julian, smiling with the kind of predatory warmth that only the truly wealthy can afford.
Alexander set his items on the counter. He reached into his leather wallet—the last vestige of his former status—and pulled out the twenty.
Lou looked at the wallet, then at Alexander's face hidden in the shadow of the hood. His eyes narrowed. "That's a fancy wallet for a District 9 rat."
Alexander didn't flinch. He had faced down internet trolls, and corporate bosses in his old life. He knew when someone was testing him. "It was a gift from a dead relative," he said coldly. "Are you going to take my money or not?"
Lou grunted and rang him up. "Change is fifteen forty. Don't go flashing that leather around here, kid. Someone will take your hand off just to see if the watch matches."
"Thanks for the advice," Alexander said, taking his bag and leaving.
He walked back to his apartment as the rain began to fall—a greasy, soot-filled drizzle that turned the pavement black.
He sat on the floor of his dark room, eating the dry noodles. He didn't have the luxury of fire.
As he chewed, his mind began to work. Before his stress reliever is playing minecraft now that same mind that had spent thousands of hours optimizing redstone circuits and calculating the structural integrity of massive digital vaults. He began to strip away the emotion of his situation, looking at it like a game he had just started on the "Hardcore" setting.
Assets:
A recognizable face (A liability).
A Rodgraim education (Useless without credentials).
A systematic way of thinking (The only real tool).
Objectives:
Food security.
Information gathering.
Leverage.
He looked at the Rodgraim towers in the distance. They had discarded him because they thought he was a "non-performing asset." They thought that without their name and their money, he was nothing.
But they didn't know who was behind these blue eyes now.
He had live from nothing before. He had started with nothing. This world was just a bigger map with more complicated rules.
Alexander Rodgraim leaned his head against the cold, damp wall. The hunger was still there, but the fear was starting to crystallize into something sharper. Something dangerous.
"You should have killed me," he whispered to the distant skyline. "Because now, I'm going to start from the bottom. And I know exactly how to tear down everything you've built."
He closed his eyes, the sound of the rain against the glass sounding like the first few blocks being placed in a long, grueling build.