Chapter 3: The Child's Miracle
Marcus's body moved like a puppet on strings, his consciousness trapped behind glass while something else piloted his flesh. He watched helplessly as his feet carried him across campus toward David Kim's dorm, the hunger burning in his chest like acid.
AUTOMATIC FEEDING PROTOCOL: ACTIVE
TARGET: DAVID KIM - REVOLUTIONARY SOLAR TECHNOLOGY
ESTIMATED FEEDING TIME: 7 MINUTES
CONSCIOUSNESS WILL BE RETURNED POST-CONSUMPTION
Seven minutes. That's all it would take to destroy a mind that could have saved the world from climate change. Marcus screamed inside his own head, but his vocal cords wouldn't respond. He was a passenger in his own body, watching it commit atrocities.
The engineering dorm was quieter than his building. Marcus's hands moved without his input, finding the side door that was always broken, slipping inside like he'd done this a thousand times before. The system guided him up three flights of stairs with predatory precision.
Room 314. David's door was slightly open, warm light spilling into the hallway along with the smell of coffee and the low hum of multiple computer monitors. Marcus could hear him inside, talking to himself as he worked—a habit David had developed during long nights of coding.
"Come on, just need to optimize the photon capture rate by three percent," David muttered. "Three percent and this changes everything."
The hunger spiked so violently that Marcus's vision went white around the edges. Through the system's enhanced senses, he could see David's dreams like a blazing beacon—not just the desire for recognition or money, but genuine hope for humanity's future. The kid believed, with absolute certainty, that his work would help save the planet.
Marcus's hand reached for the door.
Then his phone rang.
The sound cut through the system's control like a knife, and suddenly Marcus could move again. He stumbled backward, gasping, fumbling for his phone with shaking hands.
"Mom" flashed on the screen.
"Marcus?" His mother's voice was tight with worry. "Thank God you answered. I know it's late, but I had to call. It's about Emma."
Emma. His eight-year-old cousin. Marcus's blood turned to ice. "What's wrong?"
"She's in the hospital, sweetheart. The doctors... they found something during her routine check-up. A tumor. On her brain stem."
The words hit Marcus like physical blows. Sweet little Emma who drew him pictures of superheroes and always asked when he was coming to visit. Emma who wanted to be a veterinarian because "animals can't tell you when they hurt, so someone has to help them."
"How bad?" Marcus managed.
His mother's voice broke. "Bad. They're saying... they're saying she might not have long. Weeks, maybe months if they can slow it down. Your uncle Tom is beside himself. They're trying everything, but the tumor is in such a delicate location..."
Marcus sank to the floor in the hallway, the system's hunger temporarily forgotten in the face of real grief. Emma was dying. Eight years old and dying.
EMOTIONAL DISTRESS DETECTED
RESUMING AUTOMATIC FEEDING PROTOCOL
"No," Marcus whispered, but already he could feel control slipping away again. The system didn't care about his family crisis—it only cared about feeding.
"Marcus? Are you there?"
"I'm here, Mom. I'm..." His hand was reaching for David's door again. "I'm coming home. Tonight. I'll catch the first bus."
"Oh, thank you. Emma keeps asking for you. She wants to show you her new drawings."
Marcus closed his eyes, fighting the system's control with everything he had. Emma's face floated in his mind—gap-toothed smile, pigtails, eyes bright with the simple joy of being alive. She had dreams too. Small ones, innocent ones. Becoming a vet, having a puppy, learning to ride a bike without training wheels.
What if there was a way to save her?
The thought came unbidden, and with it, a terrible possibility. The system fed on potential, on hopes and dreams and aspirations. But what if it worked both ways? What if he could give instead of just take?
QUERY DETECTED
ACCESSING ADVANCED FUNCTIONS...
TRANSFER PROTOCOL AVAILABLE
WARNING: REQUIRES SIGNIFICANT ENERGY RESERVES
CURRENT ENERGY: 15 UNITS
TRANSFER COST: 500+ UNITS
Marcus stared at the text floating in his vision. Five hundred units. He'd gotten fifteen from draining Jake's gaming dreams. To save Emma, he'd need to consume dozens of people's aspirations.
"I have to go, Mom," he said quietly. "Tell Emma I'm coming. And tell her... tell her Uncle Marcus is going to fix everything."
The line went dead. Marcus stood slowly, a terrible resolve settling over him like a shroud.
David Kim was still in his room, still working on technology that could revolutionize clean energy. Still dreaming of a better world.
Marcus pushed the door open.
"Oh, hey," David looked up from his computer setup, blinking owlishly behind thick glasses. "You're Marcus, right? From Professor Chen's algorithms class? What's up?"
David was smaller than Marcus had expected. Thin, maybe five-foot-six, with the pale complexion of someone who spent too much time indoors. He looked younger than his twenty years, almost fragile. The kind of person who'd never hurt anyone, who believed technology could solve the world's problems if smart people just worked hard enough.
The kind of person whose dreams Marcus was about to devour to save a dying child.
"I wanted to see what you were working on," Marcus said, his voice steady despite the screaming in his skull. "I heard you were developing some kind of revolutionary solar panel."
David's face lit up like Christmas morning. "Oh man, you want to see? I've been pulling all-nighters for weeks, but I think I've finally cracked it." He gestured excitedly at his monitor setup, where complex equations and 3D models rotated slowly. "Look at this efficiency curve. Current commercial solar panels max out around twenty-two percent energy conversion. Mine can hit forty-seven percent."
The hunger rose in Marcus's chest as David spoke, drawn by the pure enthusiasm in his voice.
"The applications are insane," David continued, completely unaware of the predator in his room. "We could power entire cities with half the panel arrays. Bring electricity to remote regions that have never had reliable power. Climate change? This could be the game-changer we need."
FEEDING OPPORTUNITY OPTIMAL
TARGET EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT: MAXIMUM
CONSUME NOW?
Marcus looked at David—really looked at him. This wasn't some entitled rich kid or corporate sellout. This was someone who genuinely wanted to help. Someone whose work could save millions of lives, prevent wars over resources, give hope to the hopeless.
And Marcus was going to destroy him to save one little girl.
"That's incredible," Marcus said softly. "You really think it could change the world?"
"I know it could." David's conviction was absolute, beautiful in its certainty. "My parents think I'm wasting my time, that I should just take one of those tech company jobs and make money. But this is bigger than money, you know? This could be humanity's future."
Consume.
The command formed in Marcus's mind with crystal clarity. David gasped, his eyes going wide as something fundamental inside him was torn away. The light of passionate conviction that had burned so brightly just moments before flickered and died.
FEEDING SUCCESSFUL
MAJOR ASPIRATION CONSUMED: REVOLUTIONARY SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH
ENERGY GAINED: 847 UNITS
WARNING: EXCEPTIONAL VALUE DETECTED - CIVILIZATION-ALTERING POTENTIAL DESTROYED
LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP! LEVEL UP!
CURRENT LEVEL: 4
NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED
David blinked slowly, looking around his room as if seeing it for the first time. "What was I... oh, right. My project." He looked at the monitor displaying his revolutionary equations with the expression of someone observing paint dry. "I guess it's okay. Probably not worth the effort though. Maybe I should just graduate and get a normal job."
The satisfaction that flooded through Marcus was obscene. The system had absorbed not just David's dreams but his passion, his drive, his very sense of purpose. In moments, one of the brightest minds of his generation had been reduced to just another apathetic college student.
But Marcus now had the energy he needed.
ENERGY RESERVES: 847 UNITS
TRANSFER PROTOCOL READY
SELECT TARGET FOR ENERGY DONATION
Marcus closed his eyes and thought of Emma. Sweet, innocent Emma with her drawings and her dreams of saving animals and her brain tumor that was slowly killing her.
"Emma Chen," he whispered.
TARGET LOCATED: DISTANCE 347 KILOMETERS
ANALYZING MEDICAL CONDITION...
GRADE IV GLIOBLASTOMA DETECTED
TUMOR LOCATION: BRAINSTEM
PROGNOSIS: TERMINAL
TRANSFER OPTIONS AVAILABLE:
OPTION 1: ENHANCED HEALING FACTOR - COST: 500 UNITS
OPTION 2: CELLULAR REGENERATION - COST: 750 UNITS
OPTION 3: COMPLETE BIOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION - COST: 1200 UNITS
Marcus stared at the options. Enhanced healing might not be enough—her cancer was too aggressive. But he only had 847 units, not enough for complete reconstruction.
"Can I give her the regeneration and something else?" he asked.
ANALYZING ALTERNATIVES...
OPTION 4: REGENERATION + ENHANCED IMMUNE SYSTEM - COST: 847 UNITS
WARNING: WILL EXHAUST ALL ENERGY RESERVES
WARNING: INSUFFICIENT ENERGY REMAINING FOR BASIC FUNCTIONS
EXTREME HUNGER WILL RESULT
Marcus didn't hesitate. "Do it."
The energy flowed out of him like water through a broken dam. For a moment, Marcus felt connected to something vast and cosmic—he could sense Emma three hundred miles away, could feel the tumor in her tiny brain, could touch the genetic code that was failing her.
Then the power was gone, and Marcus collapsed.
TRANSFER COMPLETE
ENERGY RESERVES: 0 UNITS
HUNGER LEVEL: CRITICAL
AUTOMATIC FEEDING PROTOCOL WILL ACTIVATE IN 30 SECONDS
David was still sitting at his computer, scrolling through job websites with mild interest. He'd already minimized his revolutionary solar panel research, dismissing years of work as "probably not worth it."
Marcus tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't support him. The hunger was beyond anything he'd experienced before—not just in his stomach but in every cell, every nerve ending. It felt like he was dissolving from the inside out.
Twenty seconds.
His phone buzzed with a text from his mother: Emma just woke up asking for ice cream. Doctor says her latest scans look different—they want to run more tests in the morning. She seems... better somehow. Stronger.
It had worked. Whatever he'd done, however it worked, Emma was going to live.
Ten seconds.
Marcus felt his consciousness starting to slip away as the system prepared to take control again. But this time would be different. This time he had no energy reserves to cushion the feeding. The system would be ravenous, desperate.
Five seconds.
Through the walls, Marcus could sense the other students in the dorm. The pre-med student studying for her boards. The engineer working on water purification systems for developing countries. The philosophy major who wanted to teach underprivileged kids.
So many dreams. So many good people whose aspirations could feed the monster he'd become.
Three seconds.
Marcus closed his eyes and smiled. Emma was going to live. She'd grow up, become a veterinarian, save countless animals, maybe have kids of her own someday.
One little girl's miracle, paid for with the dreams of everyone around him.
Two seconds.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He'd become exactly what the system wanted—not just a host, but a willing partner. Someone who would justify any atrocity for the right cause.
One second.
AUTOMATIC FEEDING PROTOCOL: ACTIVE
MASS CONSUMPTION MODE ENABLED
ESTIMATED TARGETS: 23
ESTIMATED FEEDING TIME: 47 MINUTES
Marcus's body stood up, no longer his to control. Through windows and walls, he could sense them all—the bright lights of human potential just waiting to be extinguished.
And somewhere deep in his hijacked mind, the part of him that was still human whispered a prayer for forgiveness that he knew would never come.
The feeding began.