He no longer remembered when he'd stopped believing tomorrow could be better. Maybe it was the day he lost his job. Maybe when she left. Or maybe it was long before that — back when he was a child, holding a rifle heavier than his limbs, learning how to silence his conscience just to survive.

  His name had been Ken. At least, it used to be.

  Now he was just another dying man the world wouldn't notice.

  The apartment was a box. Gray cracked walls stained by age and rot. The fan overhead clicked out of sync with its spin like it was struggling to stay alive. His mattress sagged against the floor. A single metal chair, a pot on a busted hotplate, and an old tablet with a cracked screen made up his kingdom.

  Outside, the world screamed.

  Not in words. In sounds. Sirens. Screeching tires. The dull thump of construction. Arguments through thin walls. Explosions — sometimes distant, sometimes not. The city was at war with itself. Bombs still fell on the outskirts. No one called it war anymore. It was just the way things were.

  He worked twelve-hour shifts for cash under the table. Construction when he could. Cleaning when he couldn’t. A torture schedule — soul-grinding routines that broke his back and hollowed his eyes. One day mopping blood off clinic floors in warzones. The next scrubbing toilets in half-built apartments.

  But he needed the money.

  He always needed the money.

  His breath caught in his throat, heavy with dust. A memory surfaced, sharp and unwelcome. Her voice — flat, stripped of warmth — saying she couldn’t do this anymore. Then her back turned, walking away, the air clinging to the scent of another man's cheap cologne. When the door clicked shut, only silence remained. The dull glint of his old dog tags on the table caught the light — a tarnished relic of promises she hadn’t valued.

  She had been everything. His reason. But when life grew heavy, she vanished like the rest. Said he was a burden. Said she needed someone with a future.

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  He had just been an anchor.

  Then came the betrayals. Friends who borrowed money and disappeared. One who slept with her. Another who used his name to take out a fake loan. Every time he got back up, someone knocked him down again.

  His parents — his mother wheezing in the dark, too proud to cry. His father grinding his teeth while counting change for painkillers they couldn’t afford. They died slowly, crushed under a system that only valued life when it was profitable.

  The pandemic was the final blow. His last relatives — his uncle, the wife, their little girl — gone. One by one. No beds. No oxygen. No justice. Just numbers added to a statistic no one cared to remember.

  Now he was the last name in his phone’s contact list. The only one left to delete.

  He stared at the ceiling — the same one he’d stared at for years.

  The fan clicked again. His chest grew heavy, like something was pressing from the inside. A dull pain ran down his left arm. He rubbed it absently and reached for his tablet — the only comfort left in his world. It flickered to life. The screen loaded slowly, then finally appeared: Ashes of the Sacred Empire.

  A long chaotic webnovel he’d poured himself into. His only escape. Hundreds of chapters chronicled the fall of Seth Caelestis — the Crimson Sun. Once a saviour, then a monster. He destroyed his empire and burned it to ash. Not because he wanted to — because the world broke him until he didn’t know what else to be.

  The last chapter he’d read had stayed with him.

  Seth, standing before his son, who had become his executioner. He didn’t fight. Just stood there — exhausted, ready, maybe even relieved.

  It felt familiar.

  The author had died last week. Just gone. Like everyone else.

  The pain returned, sharper this time. Breathing became harder. He sat up. Something was wrong.

  A cold sweat broke across his spine. His left arm went numb. His jaw ached. Vision blurred. He gasped as panic took hold. He reached for his phone, but it slipped and cracked against the floor. No signal. No battery. Maybe both.

  He tried to call out, but his throat wouldn’t work.

  His body seized. Pain tore through his ribs. His heart was breaking — no, bursting. And there was no one. No one to find him. No one to help.

  He dropped to his knees. His head hit the mattress. The fan spun slowly overhead, ticking like a countdown.

  This was it.

  And one final thought before the dark closed in:

  If only he had been born somewhere else — somewhere the world gave him a chance.

  Then nothing.

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