Morning claws at me like it's personal. My eyes open, but my body stays frozen, wrapped in the warmth of sleep I didn't get enough of. I blink at the ceiling. Still cracked. Still the same.
I don't want to go. Not today. Not any day. But the world doesn't stop for boys who'd rather disappear.
I drag myself out of bed and into my clothes, no thought involved. Black shirt, hoodie, jeans. The usual armor. I trudge downstairs, where the kitchen smells like coffee and burnt toast.
Dad is already at the table, chewing through the newspaper like it owes him something. Mom flips pancakes, humming a song from the radio that doesn't suit this house.
"Morning," I mutter.
"Sleep okay?" Mom asks, not looking.
"Fine," I lie.
"Test today?" Dad grunts.
"Nope."
They nod, satisfied with the quiet normalcy. We talk about the weather, the road construction on Mill Street, how gas is too high. Nothing that matters. Nothing that touches the things clawing at the back of my mind.
Breakfast ends, plates scraped, chairs pushed back. They move on with their routines. I put on my backpack and slip out into the grey morning.
Ash Hollow doesn't feel any different. Same cold sidewalks. Same dead trees. I take the long route to school. I always do. It's not about the scenery. It's about thinking space.
I weigh it all in silence. CPU mining or GPU mining. My Ryzen 9 5950X is a beast. Sixteen cores. Enough threads to choke a god. But power alone isn't enough. The RTX 3060 I have isn't top tier, but it's good. Twelve gigs of VRAM. Enough to handle mid-size loads.
I could run both. Balance the stress. I'll start small, see what the system can handle. If the fans don't scream and the temps behave, I'll scale it. I'll keep it quiet. Low profile. This town eats anything that dares to dream.
I get to school. The same chipped lockers. Same halls filled with voices that don't speak to me.
I slip into first period and sink into my seat like I'm trying to disappear into it. The desk wobbles beneath my weight, one leg shorter than the others, always creaking like it's got something to say. I keep my eyes down. Mr. Hawkins is already at the board, writing equations with the same mechanical rhythm he's used since the first day of the semester.
His voice drips like cold rain against a window.
"...functions of exponential decay..."
Yeah. That's fitting.
No one's paying attention. Half the class is scrolling through their phones under the desks. The rest are barely staying awake. I watch a bug crawl across the tile floor, tiny legs twitching like it knows it doesn't belong here. Same.
I don't even bother opening my notebook. I already know I won't need it. Mr. Hawkins doesn't call on me. He never does. I'm the shadow in the corner of his eye. Not worth the effort.
Second period is English, which would be tolerable if the book didn't feel like it was mocking me. We're reading something about identity and finding your place in the world. Some coming-of-age crap. A kid who runs away to find himself. Everyone acts like it's deep, but it's a fantasy.
Most people don't get to find themselves.
They just get stuck.
"Draven," the teacher says suddenly.
My stomach tenses.
"What do you think the author meant when he described the lake as 'silent, like a grave'?"
I blink. I didn't even know we were talking about that part. My voice comes out flat.
"I guess... he felt like nothing was alive there."
She nods slowly, not impressed, not annoyed. Just marking time.
"Interesting. Anyone else?"
And just like that, I disappear again.
Third period is science. I like the subject, but not the way it's taught. Diagrams. Textbooks. Safety goggles that smell like someone else's face.
The kid next to me snorts at something on his phone. He elbows his friend and points at the screen. They laugh like they've never tasted silence. I rest my chin on my hand and try not to think about my rig sitting at home, the silent beast waiting to wake up.
Then lunch.
The cafeteria is a circus of noise and smells I've learned to tune out. The scent of fake cheese and sweat. Overcooked fries. The slap of trays against tables. I don't eat in there.
I walk past them, past Kenny and Brad, past the table full of girls that stare at their reflections in phone screens like they're trying to escape through them.
I sit outside, under the one half-dead tree near the back fence. It's not peaceful. The wind cuts through my hoodie, and the ground's too cold. But at least it's mine.
My sandwich is soggy. The soda's warm.
I see her again.
Lilith. She's across the yard, sitting under the awning by the band hall. Black hoodie, black boots, earbuds in, knees pulled up to her chest as she scribbles something in a notebook. Her hair catches the light like ink bleeding across paper.
She's the only thing in this school that looks like she was meant for a different story.
She doesn't notice me. She never does.
Maybe that's for the best.
I wouldn't know what to say anyway.
Fourth period is history, which feels more like a nap with background noise. The teacher talks about empires collapsing, wars breaking out, treaties failing. It all sounds familiar. The decay of old power. The slow crumble.
I wonder what they'll say in textbooks about towns like Ash Hollow. Probably nothing. We'll be a footnote in some economic study no one reads.
Then it's time for gym.
The worst part of the day.
The coach makes us play dodgeball, again. As if organized violence is a good way to build character. The teams are uneven, always are, but no one cares.
Kenny and Brad are on the opposite team. Of course.
They don't throw to win. They throw to hurt.
I dodge the first one, barely. The second grazes my arm. I hear them laugh. They don't even try to hide it.
"You see that? He jumped like a little rat."
I don't respond. I never do. Responding only makes it worse.
The game ends with us losing. No surprise there.
Last period drags its knuckles across my soul. I can't even remember what the class is. Something about economics, maybe. Irony.
I keep glancing at the clock. I want to go home. I want to feel the keys under my fingers, hear the soft hum of the fans. I want to run the numbers, tweak the config, watch my screen light up with promise.
They wait for me after last period, like always. I knew they would. I took the long way out, but Ash Hollow High doesn't have escape routes. Just dead ends and blind spots.
"Hey freak," Kenny calls out from behind the gym, where the walls peel and reek of stale sweat. "Where you hiding all day, your little tech cave?"
Brad laughs. "Probably jerking off to wires."
I keep walking, clutching my backpack tighter. If I ignore them, maybe they'll get bored.
They don't.
A hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me back. I stumble and twist, but Brad's already swinging. The fist connects with my ribs. Air rushes out of me like someone sucked the soul right out of my lungs.
Another punch. My back hits the wall, rough concrete biting through my hoodie.
"Say something," Kenny sneers, his breath close. "Come on, say something smart."
I glare at him, but the words die in my throat. Maybe if I speak, I'll taste blood again.
Brad kicks my leg out from under me. I hit the ground hard. The gravel digs in like teeth.
They walk off laughing, casual like they just crushed a bug.
I don't cry. I never do. But something inside me tightens like a knot pulled too far. I lie there a few more seconds, face half in the dirt, then force myself up. The pain in my side burns with every breath. My left arm's numb.
The walk home is quiet.
Too quiet.
The streets stretch like veins through a dying corpse. Rusted cars. Flaking paint. Houses that lean like they're tired of standing. Ash Hollow isn't just a town. It's a wound that never closes.
Every step echoes with their voices. Freak. Rat. Loser.
My jaw clenches. I want to scream. I want to hit something. But I don't. I keep walking. I let the anger simmer, slow and steady. I need it.
When I finally get home, the house is quiet. Mom's humming in the kitchen. Dad's probably in the garage. I don't say anything. I don't want them to see the bruises.
I head straight to my room.
The backpack hits the floor with a thud. I sink into my chair and press the power button. The hum of the fans is the only welcome I need.
My desktop boots up. I ignore my notifications, open the browser, and start downloading XMRig. I read every page twice. Check the threads. Watch some scuffed tutorial from a guy with a broken mic and four views.
I set it up anyway.
The config file looks like a puzzle someone shredded and threw in a blender. I paste my wallet address, point it to a Monero pool, double-check the CPU affinity. My hands shake a little, but I press Start.
The window opens.
The terminal flickers to life. Thread one. Thread two. All sixteen cores spinning.
My PC groans under the load. Heat rises from the case. The fan spins louder.
I sit back, exhausted. Hollow. But there's a flicker of something underneath. Like a spark deep in the ash.
I don't stay up to watch it run. My body hurts. My brain feels like it's wrapped in gauze.
I crawl into bed and let sleep take me.
The morning comes too soon.
I bolt up before the sun. My ribs still throb, but I limp over to the screen. It's still mining. CPU temp in the 70s. I open my wallet. My heart tightens with something close to hope.
Six cents.
Six goddamn cents.
My eyes narrow. I check the GPU tab. It's been running a Ravencoin miner in the background. Hashrate's garbage, but it didn't crash.
Three cents.
All night, and I earned enough to not even buy a piece of gum.
I stare at the numbers for a long time. My stomach sinks. This isn't going to be easy. I thought maybe I'd wake up to a few dollars. Something real.
But this is scraps.
I bury my face in my hands. I could give up. Call it a dumb experiment and move on. Go back to surviving school. Avoiding fists. Watching Lilith from a distance like she's a galaxy away.
But I don't.
Instead, I start researching.
I pull up hashrates. I do the math. One Ryzen 9 pulls 60 cents a day if the pool doesn't screw you. My RTX 3060 only pushes 25 cents with KawPow. The return is garbage for the power it pulls.
ASICs? Useless without 220 volt plugs. Not an option.
But CPUs... they're still cheap if you pick the right ones.
I dig deeper.
Ryzen 3 3600. Six cores. Solid RandomX performance. Not as fast as the 5950X, but decent for the price. Around 300 hashes per second. That's... maybe 25 to 30 cents per day per chip.
I check eBay. Newegg. Reddit's hardware swap.
Some guy's selling used units. Dirt cheap. I calculate again. $90 for the CPU. Another $30 for a low-end B450 board. 16GB RAM. A 120GB SSD. PSU. Case is optional.
Maybe I can get each rig running for under $300. If I cut corners. Hunt hard.
I open my bank.
One thousand dollars left.
Three rigs. That's all I can afford. Three chances to claw my way out of this festering town. No GPUs. Just enough to boot and mine. I'll scavenge whatever old graphics cards I can to get video output.
I start building the list.
It's like shopping for weapons before a war.
Hours pass. My cart fills. Click. Add. Compare. Check again. I'm cutting every corner I can without turning it all into junk.
Finally, I hit Order.
My bank account bleeds out. One thousand becomes ten.
I stare at the confirmation screen.
There's no turning back now.
The parts will take a few days to arrive. Until then, I'll keep mining on what I have. I'll read more. Learn everything. I'll make this work if it kills me.
I drag myself to bed and collapse into it.
The silence doesn't scare me anymore.
Not now.
Not when I've got a plan.
The boxes came on a gray afternoon. Three of them. Brown. Scuffed. Heavy with promise.
Draven didn't even say hello to the delivery guy. He just stood there barefoot, hoodie sleeves too long, eyes sunken from nights of reading benchmarks and wattage charts. His hands trembled when he lifted the first box.
His room was chaos before the sun even set. Tools. Zip ties. Manuals. Cheap thermal paste smeared on the corner of his desk like a ritual gone wrong. He knelt on the floor, laying each part out like relics on an altar. CPUs, fans, motherboards, PSUs, RAM sticks still in static wrap. There was no joy on his face. Not exactly. It was something deeper. Something colder. Something electric.
The first machine came together slowly. The budget B450 board fought him, a plastic tab snapping like a tooth under pressure. He swore, low and sharp, then fixed it with a paperclip and defiance.
The second build went faster. His fingers knew the weight of the RAM. The feel of the pins locking into the socket. The screw angles on the cheap PSU. He didn't need instructions anymore. He didn't need anyone.
The third machine gave him hell. One of the old used GPUs refused to display anything. He swapped HDMI cables. Rechecked power. Then slapped the card with the back of his screwdriver. It worked.
For the first time in months, Draven smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile. It was cracked and crooked, but it was real.
The sun dipped behind the skeletal trees outside. Ash Hollow's evening silence thickened like smoke. But in Draven's room, there was only the rustle of cables. The buzz of a test fan spinning. The faint hum of life waiting to ignite.
He sat in the center of it all.
Three machines. Ugly. Brutal. No cases. Just open air frames made from old shelving and salvaged metal. Wires dangled. LED lights blinked faintly like half-awake eyes.
He plugged each one in, heart pounding.
The first system clicked on. Fan blades spun. The motherboard beeped.
The second lit up a moment later. No errors.
The third took its time, then kicked to life like a defibrillator to the chest.
Draven sat back, surrounded by heat and noise. He opened the mining software. Config files. Wallet addresses. Threads assigned and pools set.
One by one, he started the miners.
XMRig on all three. CPU threads spinning up like a ritual chant.
The room filled with sound. Not loud. Not yet. Just... alive. Humming. Breathing. Whispering promises in binary.
Draven leaned back in his chair, eyes closed.
For the first time in forever, he wasn't invisible. He wasn't small. He wasn't powerless.
He had machines now.
And they would never laugh at him.