Chapter 1 – The Beginning After the End
Fuuu... what a miserable life...
Sitting in a creaky old rocking chair, I stare at a wall stained with creeping mold that spreads like ancient wounds across its surface. The ceiling's been leaking for weeks, making the air damp and the days feel colder, heavier.
I'm wearing tattered pants and a sweatshirt with more holes than fabric. My unkempt beard and matted hair make me look like a castaway, stranded in the ruins of his own life.
My body aches, my mind slowly dissolves, and the only company I have left is the rusted ticking of a broken clock and the voices of people who come not out of care—but greed.
I, once hailed as the most brilliant genius of the century, have become a nameless shell, rotting away in a room that reeks of rot and regret.
At my side, a woman looks down on me with disgust. Her tight lips, furrowed brow, and eyes full of contempt. Ironically... she's my daughter, Lana. The same girl I once taught to read, to count, to trust.
The man standing next to her, Roger Smith, used to be my closest friend—more like a brother, really.
Now? Just a vulture, waiting to tear apart what's left of my legacy.
Smith gestures to two doctors dressed in sterile white coats and surgical gloves. Their expressions are blank, robotic.
"Mr. Smith," one of them says, "we've tried to remove the implant, but there's no trace of it in the frontal lobe. Not a single mark."
"Damn it all..." Smith growls, clenching his fist. "We waited all this time just to retrieve the key, and we still come up empty."