"Fuck!"
Noah kicked open the door to his shabby apartment.
He had just gotten fired, again. This had been the third job this month. His boss, a sleazy greaseball with a combover, had cited "a bad attitude" and "incompetence," but Noah knew the real reason. He was just an easy target. An orphan with no one to defend him, no one to even care that he was being cast aside like a piece of trash.
He slammed the door shut, the cheap wood rattling in its frame. He wanted to scream, to break something, to tear the whole rotten world apart. But he didn't. He just stood there, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
The silence of the apartment was deafening, broken only by the sound of his own ragged breathing. A single cockroach scurried across the floor, and he watched it with a detached sort of envy. At least the cockroach was free. He was trapped, trapped by debt, by grief, by the crushing weight of a life that had never given him a chance.
He sank to the floor, the gritty texture of the cheap linoleum digging into his palms. He buried his face in his hands, the rough fabric of his worn-out jeans rubbing against his skin. He felt a hot, angry tear trace a path down his cheek, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
He wouldn't cry.
Crying was for people who had something to lose. He had lost everything, a long time supposed to be an adult, but he felt like a lost little boy.
He was alone.
So alone.
He closed his eyes, a wave of despair washing over him, threatening to pull him under. He had no idea how he was going to pay rent, how he was going to eat.
The forty-three thousand dollars in debt he owed from his parents' funeral and legal fees loomed over him like a storm cloud, a constant, oppressive reminder of his failure. He was a failure.
A complete and utter failure.
He just wanted it all to be over.
But just as he's about to be consumed by the abyss, a chime sounds in his mind.
A screen materializes in the darkness behind his closed eyelids, glowing with a soft, blue light. It's impossibly thin, yet the text is razor-sharp.
─ Sign-in System Initialized.
─ Daily Sign-in Available.
A cursor blinks, an invitation. A trap? A joke? He doesn't care. Anything is better than this. He focuses on the prompt.
─ Sign-in Successful.
─ Reward: $70,000 (Tax-Free).
─ Reward: 2023 Lotus Evora GT.
Noah's eyes snap open.
For the first time in a long time, he feels something other than numb despair. It's a jolt. A spark. He instinctively reaches into the pocket of his threadbare jeans. His fingers brush against cold, sculpted metal and a small fob with a stylized lotus emblem.
It's real.
He scrambles to his feet, stumbling over to the small, wobbly table where his cheap, prepaid phone sits. He taps the screen, his hands trembling. He opens the banking app, the one he uses to track his pathetic balance. The numbers stare back at him, a line of digital text that makes no sense.
$70,012.48.
Before, there was $12.48. He remembers buying a pack of ramen with it.
He laughs. A dry, rasping sound that gets caught in his throat. It's not a laugh of joy. It's a laugh of disbelief. A laugh of pure, unadulterated shock. He scrolls down, looking for the source of the deposit. It just says: "Direct Deposit."
System.
The word hangs in the air, alien and absolute. He looks around the cramped apartment, the peeling paint, the stained mattress on the floor. This place, this life, it's a cage.
But the key has just been handed to him.
Literally and figuratively.
He looks at the key in his other hand, it's cold, a promise of a different kind of freedom. A freedom he doesn't understand. A freedom he's not sure he wants.
He shoves the key back into his pocket, the metal biting into his thigh. He needs to see it. The car. He needs to touch it, to feel its solid, real, undeniably present form.
He throws on a jacket, the worn denim familiar against his skin, and walks out the door. He doesn't lock it. There's nothing left to steal. The hallway smells of old cooking and damp, a scent he's known his whole life. He takes the stairs down, two at a time, the concrete steps echoing under his worn-out sneakers.
The night air hits him, cool and smelling of exhaust fumes and distant jasmine. He walks to the curb, his eyes scanning the street. The usual lineup of beat-up sedans and rusted-out trucks. Nothing new.
And then he sees it.
It's parked illegally, a slash of British racing green against the gray asphalt. It's not just a car; it's a statement. A scream. The lines of the body are sharp, aggressive, a predator frozen in mid-pounce. It's absurdly beautiful, a piece of kinetic art dropped into the grime of his reality.
That's when it hit him.
It's real.
He approaches it slowly, like a wild animal that might bolt at any second. He runs a hand over the hood. The paint is smooth, perfect. The metallic green shimmers under the orange glow of the streetlamp. He can see his own reflection in the chrome, a distorted, ghostly figure. A boy in a worn-out denim jacket, staring at a car that costs more than his entire apartment building.
He feels a disconnect, a sense of unreality that's so profound it's almost nauseating. This isn't his life. This can't be his life.
He pulls the key from his pocket. He presses the fob. The lights flash, a silent greeting. The door unlocks with a satisfying click. He slides into the driver's seat. The leather is cool against his skin, the interior a cocoon of carbon fiber and aluminum. The air smells new, expensive, a chemical, sterile scent that's completely alien.
He puts the key in the ignition. He turns it.
The engine roars to life, a deep, guttural growl that vibrates through the seat, up his spine, and into the very marrow of his bones. It's a sound that promises speed, power, and a world away from the one he knows.