The static started behind his eyes.
Kye bolted upright on the creaking mattress of his basement room, fists clenched around air, breath coming too fast, like he'd run through someone else's nightmare. The room swam, but only for a moment. Then it was still again—shadows motionless, rain ticking against the reinforced grate over his single window.
The envelope lay open on his chest. The lottery ticket hovered beside it.
Still pulsing.
Still waiting.
He didn't remember scratching anything. He didn't remember opening the envelope. But the memory bled behind his thoughts, sharp as cut glass:
> ENTRY ZERO: YOU WON MORE THAN MONEY. YOU WON RESPONSIBILITY.
Kye touched the side of his head, expecting blood. Found none.
Just the whisper.
A man's voice. Not his.
His own voice.
From somewhere far away.
"You carry what I left behind. Speak it, or forget me completely."
He staggered out of bed, slipped on his jacket, and left.
The rain was thin and cold, and the city was too awake for 3:17 a.m. Neon glared at puddles. People passed like ghosts, transaction-hungry and sleepless. He walked with no direction, drawn by something that tugged—not at his body, but his memory.
In an alley behind Zeta Row's old printing house, he stopped.
There was a broken wall. Brick, moss-covered, useless.
And his hand moved before thought could stop it.
He scrawled words in the wet stone with his thumbnail.
> "I will not survive at the expense of another's hope."
The line shimmered.
Burned.
Faded.
And somewhere down the alley, someone gasped.
A woman in her forties stood holding an umbrella. Her eyes met his. She didn't speak.
But she reached into her coat.
And pulled out a folded slip of gold paper.
Another ticket.
Her lips formed a single word:
"You too?"
Kye turned and ran.
The System blinked behind his vision:
> YOU HAVE BEEN WITNESSED.
TRUTH ACCEPTED.
MEMORY UNLOCKED.
His knees buckled. He hit the side of a bench and slid to the pavement.
That's when the ticket began to whisper.
"You remember him. You are him. But this time, you must win a truth without trading a life."
Kye whispered, "Who did I used to be?"
The ticket didn't answer.
But his hands began to glow.
Not with power.
With data.
Memories: children speaking vows. A blade held with compassion. A vault burning bright.
He saw a flame write:
> ARTICLE VI: No system shall define what a soul owes.
And then his voice—his current voice—cracked open:
"I never wanted to survive if it meant forgetting why I mattered."
Across the city, terminals flickered.
A new tag appeared on shadow markets:
> #VaultedSpeech
An old woman watching from a public kiosk began to cry.
"He's back," she said.
Deep in the skyscrapers of Neuron Spire, a man in black played the phrase back from a device no one else could hear.
He smiled.