The water wanted him.
Not because he couldn't swim. He could. Had learned in the community pool when he was six, before his mother left and the money dried up. The strokes were muscle memory, efficient and clean.
But the power that controlled everything had decided otherwise.
His lungs screamed. His body thrashed. And somewhere in the burning hypoxia, a thought flickered through with absurd clarity: How hard is it to drown when you know how to swim?
Pretty damn hard, apparently.
He opened his mouth to scream.
AHHHHHHHH—
Water entered his lungs from within. From above, the only trace remained.
Bubbles.
Just bubbles rising to a surface he couldn't reach.
***
The young man jolted upright, chest heaving.
His hands clawed at his throat. No water. Air—sweet, stale dorm room air—filled his lungs in ragged gulps. Sweat soaked through his shirt, cold against his skin.
He blinked.
Familiar ceiling. Familiar water stain in the corner shaped like a dog. Familiar smell of old pizza and cheaper detergent.
His dorm room.
"No," he whispered.
But the word came out wrong, shaped by disbelief rather than denial. Because he knew this room. Had lived here. Had loved it, once, back when college felt like freedom instead of a countdown to apocalypse.
He died. He was certain he died.
His phone sat on the desk, screen dark. He lunged for it, nearly tripping over the chair, and thumbed it awake.
Saturday, December 22, 2027
11:00 AM
Three days.
Three days before the Rupture.
The phone slipped through his fingers and clattered onto the desk. His mind raced, fragmented thoughts colliding: transmigration, second chance, impossible, doesn't matter, the Choirs are coming, no time, no time—
He stood.
Blonde hair disheveled. Blue eyes wide but sharpening with each breath. Tall frame still loose with sleep but already moving toward the door.
No more dilly-dally.
He grabbed his phone and shoved it into his pajama pocket. Three days wasn't enough to prepare for the end of the world, but it was three days more than he'd had before. His hand closed around the doorknob.
He yanked the door open and strode into the hallway.
The door slammed behind him.
Five seconds of silence.
Then the door opened again.
The same young man stepped back inside, jaw tight with annoyance. He bent down and grabbed his sneakers from beside the bed, jamming his feet into them without bothering with the laces.
His eyes landed on the desk.
A sandwich sat there, half-eaten, edges dotted with the faint green-black of mold.
He looked at it for exactly one second.
Then he grabbed it and walked out again.
***
The Rolls-Royce door opened with a whisper of engineered precision.
Zero stepped out onto the White House driveway and immediately felt like a stain on expensive carpet.
The chauffeur—broad-shouldered, suit tailored to intimidating perfection—stood with the kind of posture that suggested military background. Behind him, security personnel watched from posts, M16 rifles held with casual readiness.
Zero's black hair hung limp against his forehead. His black eyes scanned the grounds without hurry. The white t-shirt beneath his oversized black coat showed stretch marks at the seams, and his trousers had that worn softness of fabric laundered too many times. Thin build. Average height. Nothing about him suggested he belonged here.
But wealth and power had never intimidated Zero. He just found it interesting.
"Follow me closely," the chauffeur said, voice professional and flat. "The President is waiting for you inside."
Zero nodded and fell into step behind him.
The gates parted. Guards with rifles watched them pass. Zero kept his expression neutral, but his mind catalogued everything: the sight lines, the camera placements, the way the security personnel moved with coordinated efficiency.
They entered through doors that probably cost more than his entire childhood.
The corridors of the White House stretched ahead, lined with crystal chandeliers that caught the light like frozen waterfalls. Oil paintings in gilt frames stared down from the walls. Every surface gleamed with the kind of cleanliness that required an army of staff.
Zero's gaze drifted across a painting—some historical scene rendered in meticulous detail.
One of these pieces could solve every financial problem I've ever had.
The thought arrived without bitterness. Just observation. The world was unfair. The distance between two human lives could be vast enough to make them unrecognizable to each other. He'd known that since he was small.
But things were going to change.
Zero wasn't interested in vast wealth. A decent meal every day. A roof over his head. Enough money to indulge his hobbies. That would be enough.
Though he had to admit—his sister would go absolutely feral for all of this. The little gremlin would probably try to steal a chandelier.
But I've developed the cure for cancer, Zero thought, and something almost like a smile touched his lips. Fate, I guess.
The President had replied to his email. Had invited him here professionally. His future was about to get very bright.
The chauffeur stopped in front of a white door with gold trim, ornate enough to make Zero wonder if it was actually functional or just decorative.
"Young man," the chauffeur said, voice dropping slightly. "Behave yourself inside. You can leave here blessed or cursed. Be mindful of your actions."
Zero met his eyes and nodded. He wasn't stupid enough to act out in front of the most powerful man in the country.
"Good."
The chauffeur opened the door and gestured him inside.
Zero stepped through.
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
The room was grand. Of course it was.
High ceilings. More crystal. Furniture that probably had histories written about it. And sitting behind a large desk, looking at Zero with the same face he'd seen a hundred times on television, was President Ronald.
Zero felt a flicker of something—not star-struck, exactly. Just the odd dissonance of seeing someone in person whom he'd only ever encountered through screens.
Then his attention caught on something else.
A man sat on a sofa to the left side of the room. Black suit, unremarkable face, posture relaxed. No visible weapons, but Zero was certain he carried at least a handgun. The fact that he was sitting at all suggested the President had told him to relax. Security here was tight enough that the man could afford to.
Zero filed that away and walked forward.
He stopped a respectful distance from the desk and gave a slight bow.
"Greetings, President Ronald. It's an honor to meet you."
The President studied him for a moment—taking in the awkward clothes, the thin frame, the calm expression that didn't quite match the absurdity of Zero's appearance here.
"Take a seat, Zero."
Zero moved to one of the two chairs facing the desk and sat. He wasn't surprised the President knew his name. Background checks were inevitable.
"Let's get to the point," President Ronald said, leaning forward slightly. "Tell me more about this cure you claim to have developed. Cancer at any stage, any type. And the research data you sent—how accurate is it?"
Zero felt a small surge of relief. Direct questions. No small talk. He could work with this.
"The approach targets cancer at the molecular level," Zero began, keeping his voice steady and clear. "Specifically, the genetic expression of malignant cells. Cancer replicates infinitely and adapts rapidly. So does the vaccine I've developed—but its sole function is to destroy cancer cells. It mutates in response to the cancer's mutations, creating a feedback loop that terminates the malignancy regardless of stage or type."
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen drive. Set it on the desk.
"That contains extensive video documentation and data from one hundred test trials. Different stages. Different cancer types. One hundred successes."
President Ronald's expression shifted—subtle, but Zero caught it. Impressed. Cautious. The kind of look that said the man understood the weight of what Zero was claiming, even if he didn't grasp every technical detail.
"You really are a genius, young man." The President's voice held genuine praise. "But—"
His words cut off.
Another voice spoke instead.
"Alright, that's enough, Ronald."
Zero's head snapped toward the source.
The man in the black suit stood behind the President's chair now, hand resting casually on the back of it. When had he moved? Zero hadn't heard footsteps.
"Now go stand in a corner and face the wall." The man's tone was conversational. Almost bored. "I'll be talking to this little genius of ours from here."
Zero's mind went blank.
Then President Ronald stood.
Walked to the corner of the room.
Turned to face the wall.
And stood there.
The man in the black suit sat down in the President's chair, folding his hands on the desk. He smiled at Zero.
"Let's start over, shall we?"
"Do you think," the man said, voice refined and dripping with something that made Zero's skin crawl, "there was no one before you who found a cure for cancer?"
Zero opened his mouth. Closed it.
The man leaned back in the President's chair, fingers steepled. His expression held the particular disgust of someone examining something beneath a shoe.
"Do you think nearly ten million peasants—" The word twisted in his mouth, sharp and ugly. "—die of this disease every year because in a world of eight billion people, there wasn't a single genius like you before?"
Thunder in Zero's chest. His hands clenched on the armrests.
"Or were they waiting?" The man's smile widened. "Waiting for you. A messiah born from peasants to save them. To save their pitiful little lives from a disease the world supposedly can't cure."
The questions hit like blows. Zero's body shook. Dark thoughts flooded in—horrible, creeping certainty that the world he'd understood was a stage set, and he'd just glimpsed the machinery behind it.
This isn't how it was supposed to go.
The man wasn't done.
"From the moment you were born, we controlled it. What you breathe. What you eat—those nasty processed foods filled with poison. What you see, what you hear, staring at your screens watching and hearing exactly what we want to show you." He gestured lazily. "Go to school. Earn your degrees. Work for scraps of money just to survive. What a pitiful little life you people have. Perfect for peasants like you."
Zero's throat constricted.
"We control it all. Wars. Famine. Disease. If it benefits us, we create it. Because we control the money, the power, everything that matters."
The man leaned forward, eyes bright with amusement.
"How does it make you feel to hear this?"
Zero already knew some of it. The additives in food designed to addict and sicken. Social media algorithms crafted to hijack dopamine pathways. But the rest—the scale of it, the casual certainty in the man's voice, the fact that even the President stood in the corner like an obedient dog—
Terrifying.
He forced his voice to work.
"I feel nothing, sir." The words came out steady. A small miracle. "Just... think of this meeting as if it never happened. I'll keep quiet. Live my ordinary peasant life."
The man smiled.
It was the kind of smile that made Zero shiver despite the room's warmth. A smile that held both praise and contempt, twisted together until they were indistinguishable. As if Zero wasn't quite human. Just an insect doing something mildly interesting before being crushed.
Zero hated how he was being treated. Hated the way rage built in his chest with nowhere to go. But he didn't let it touch his face. The circumstances didn't allow it.
He was dust. Less than dust.
And he had one person in this world he called family—his little sister. The people who could kill millions without blinking could make them both disappear with a word. He didn't want that. At least not for her.
I want to live, too, Zero thought. But I don't think that's going to happen.
The man's tone, his gaze, everything screamed superiority. Contempt. The look of someone observing garbage.
Or worse.
"You're smart," the man said. "For a peasant. Unlike your pathetic mother."
Zero's mouth moved before his brain caught up.
"My mother?"
She'd left when he was six. His sister, four. He didn't even know if she was alive.
And I don't care.
After his father passed from cancer, she'd just... gone. Zero had developed the cure not because of his father, but because of his sister's stupid joke on a phone call before college: Brother, what if you developed a cure for cancer? You're really smart. We'd be rich and save lives!
And now here he was. Fucked. All because of that little phone call.
The man clapped his hands once, delighted.
"Ronald, prepare the little show I prepared for our genius."
The President moved silently. Set up a white screen. A projector. Zero watched, numb, as the man gestured.
"Watch. It's really quite funny."
The video began.
A railway station. Normal. Crowded. The kind of place Zero had been a thousand times.
Then someone entered the frame.
Zero barely recognized her.
The woman who'd given birth to him walked across the platform, movements jerky and wrong. He'd seen that walk before—the stumbling gait of someone deep in a high.
Same old druggie.
She moved closer to the edge.
Then she tripped.
Fell.
Onto the tracks.
The train—
Zero turned away, hand over his mouth. The nausea hit hard and fast. He couldn't watch. The sounds were enough—the screams, the horrible grinding metal—
"When was this?" His voice cracked.
"The day she left you, little peasant."
The man started laughing.
Zero looked at him.
His face went cold as ice.
The laughter stopped.
"Well." The man's expression shifted to something like amusement. "We have a peasant with a bit of spine. How rare. Most people just cry during this part."
Then his voice turned cold.
"In three days, kill yourself. Or you and your sister will be gone like you never existed."
Zero's cold mask crumbled.
He'd known something like this was coming. But hearing it—the brutal certainty of it—
I hate this.
But he couldn't give up. He wanted to live.
"Why not I—"
"We don't need you." The man cut him off, bored now. "We have hundreds of geniuses like you. It got boring making you work like slaves and sparing your pathetic lives. Hundreds have proposed what you're trying to say."
Zero cursed his luck. But he'd expected this, hadn't he?
One more question. Curiosity he couldn't quite kill.
"Why not just kill me right now?"
Half an hour later, Zero stood in front of his cheap shared apartment.
He couldn't afford the college dorm. Not when he had to pay his sister's tuition.
The man's final answer buzzed in his mind like a wasp trapped in a jar.
Because I enjoy your pathetic life struggle. Will you try to fight your fate, or give up?
Infuriating.
What fight? This wasn't a fairy tale. How could he fight someone who treated the President like a dog?
The choice was obvious. If he didn't kill himself in three days, they'd both die.
Zero pushed open the door to his apartment.
The room was destroyed.
Someone had been here. His laptop—gone from the table. Everything scattered, drawers yanked open, mattress askew.
Panic surged.
He dropped to his knees and checked under the bed frantically, fingers searching for the taped packet—
Nothing.
His savings. Just over fourteen hundred dollars. Taped under the bed in a sealed bag. The little money he'd scraped together to put into the joint account he shared with his sister.
Gone.
Anger flooded his brain like boiling water.
He lost it.
His fist slammed into the wall. Again. Again. The plaster cracked. His knuckles split. He kicked the table, sent it crashing. Grabbed the metal pole he kept in the corner for self-defense and started swinging.
Glass shattered. Wood splintered. His hands bled. He didn't stop.
The commotion attracted attention.
After a few minutes, the door burst open—flimsy lock breaking easily.
His roommate stood there, eyes wide. Others behind him.
"What the hell—"
One of them moved closer, trying to stop him.
Zero raised the pipe.
Almost brought it down.
His hand shook. The pole hit the ground with a clang. The young man stumbled back, terrified.
Zero ran.
Out of the room. Out of the apartment. Into the street.
He ran, destination clear in his mind.
There's nothing left to do now.
His legs hurt. His lungs burned. But he didn't stop until he reached it.
The small abandoned wooden bridge. His place. Where he came when he needed to be alone. This path was always empty.
The sun was setting, painting the water below in shades of orange and red.
Zero took out his phone. Hands shaking—bloody from punching walls—he typed out a scheduled message for his sister. Something that would make her think it was just suicide. Nothing suspicious. Nothing that would make them look deeper.
It was hard to type with bleeding hands.
When he finished, he put the phone down on the wooden planks.
Then he climbed over the railing.
Below him, deep water.
He closed his eyes.
Live a happy life, little gremlin. Your brother needs to go. It's his time.
His body tilted forward.
An intense force slammed into his side.
"URGH—"
He crashed sideways, someone tackling him off the bridge's edge. They hit the wooden planks hard, rolling. Zero's eyes snapped open.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Handsome face.
The young man held him tightly. Zero thrashed, trying to break free.
"Leave me alone, you fucker!"
"No." The grip tightened. Strong. Too strong. "I can't leave you. You're trying to commit suicide, aren't you? I can't let that happen. Not on my watch."
"You handsome annoying fuck—" Zero struggled harder. "Leave me alone and go on your way!"
He remembered this guy. One day when Zero had no money for lunch—a common occurrence—this same handsome bastard had given him a sandwich.
It was infuriating then.
It was infuriating now.
This infuriating bastard was here to stop him from saving his sister's life. What were the chances? This bridge was always empty, and now—
Zero tried and tried, but he couldn't escape the grip. He wasn't strong, but this was ridiculous. It was like being pinned by a spider's web.
He stopped struggling.
Looked at the blonde man with cold calm.
"The moment you leave, I'm jumping. Let's see how long you can stay here."
Should I just let him die if he's that eager?
Elias had barely done anything today. The Rupture was coming in three days—December 25th. He needed to prepare more. Every second counted.
But he didn't give up.
"Skinny kid, whoever you are—just wait three days. Things will change, I promise. Whatever you're facing might not even matter after that. Then I won't stop you. You can do whatever you want with your life."
Zero scoffed internally.
What the fuck is he blabbering about? Wait three days? After three days, both he and his sister would be killed if he was alive.
What does this fucker know?
But contrary to his thoughts, Zero replied calmly.
"Okay. I'll wait."
Elias released a sigh of relief. He stood, letting go.
Zero immediately tried to run.
Elias's kick caught him in the side—swift, precise, targeting the liver.
BAM.
Pain exploded through Zero's torso.
"AHHHH—"
He dropped to the ground, clutching his chest. It hurt so much he couldn't breathe.
Elias looked down at him, face tight with frustration.
"I'm telling you one last time. Just wait three days. Every problem you have—whether it's loan sharks trying to kill you or anyone else—it won't matter."
Then Elias kicked him again. Same spot. Full strength. Liver shot to the stomach.
"AHHHHHH!"
Maybe pain will make him realize how scary death is.
The scream faded into background noise as Elias picked up his large trolley and ran toward his destination, leaving the young man behind.
It's up to him now. Live or die.
Zero clutched his stomach.
The pain was unlike anything he'd ever felt. He'd been punched before. Kicked. But this—
"Ahhh..."
Ten minutes passed before he could stand. When he did, he immediately vomited, bile burning his throat.
He lifted his shirt. The coat was gone—thrown aside during his run here. A dark bruise had already formed where the kicks landed. The pain was numbing now, spreading through his core.
That fucking lunatic.
He was gone.
Zero walked to the bridge, movements unsteady. The kicks still affected him, each step sending fresh waves of pain through his abdomen.
He looked down at the water.
But the blonde bastard's last words echoed in his mind.
Just wait three days. Every problem you have—it won't matter.
Zero stood there for half an hour, staring at the water below. The same sentence resounded again and again in his skull.
Finally, he turned around.
Started walking—barely, limping—back toward his apartment.
I believe him.
He didn't know why. But that kind of person—the one who'd given him a sandwich when he had nothing, who'd tackled him to save his life—that kind of person wouldn't lie in a situation like this.
And Elias had left pretty quickly. Had been in a hurry. There was that big strange trolley on the side, too. They went to the same college, different branches. It was the weekend. Very odd for someone to be traveling down this abandoned path with such a large trolley.
He knows something I don't. Something happening in three days.
Zero put his trust in the handsome bastard.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't prepare for the worst.
He reached his apartment barely walking. It was dark.
The landlord kicked him out before he even got inside. Didn't even let him collect his things.
Zero didn't bother arguing. There was nothing left anyway.
He had his phone. A painful wound on his stomach that still hurt like hell. And nothing else.
"Fuck you, bastard."
Dedicated to the one who'd kicked him.
Zero had no money. The little he had in his account—barely six hundred dollars in the joint account with his sister—he didn't want to touch. That was for her.
He knew his destination.
The red light district.
It was the first time in his life he was going there intentionally.
That place only attracted trouble.
But Zero didn't have a choice anymore.
End of Chapter One