Chapter 3

Over the next twenty-seven days, I squeezed out every possible second to spend on Chloe.

I tutored her in Calculus, ran blocks away to buy her specific sugar-free lattes, and even walked her notoriously short-tempered purebred French Bulldog.

Chloe was generous with her money, often tossing me a few bucks, sometimes a dozen, as payment.

And as long as that money passed through my hands, it instantly swelled ten-million-fold within the system.

After twenty-seven days of this maddening "withdrawal" spree, I had dumped nearly three billion dollars into my Virtual Space.

The Water Purification Matrix, Thermostatic Survival Pods, and four Turbo Diesel-Electric Hybrid Engines were fully mounted.

The outermost armor layer was even fitted with a high-voltage grid and two rows of six-barrel rotary machine gun turrets.

My Doomsday Ark was fully constructed, just waiting for the flood to break out tomorrow to be pulled from the void.

But in reality, I remained the defenseless blood bag waiting to be bled dry.

Ever since my family discovered I was working for a "rich girl," their attitude toward me hadn't improved one bit; in fact, it worsened.

Every night I came home, my mother practically patted me down at the door like she was searching a thief.

Even if I hid two coins to buy a bottle of water, it would earn me a vicious torrent of verbal abuse.

My dad and Paul treated me like an ATM they could withdraw from at any moment, digging into my pockets just to buy a pack of smokes.

To avoid any unexpected trouble at the eleventh hour, I endured it all.

I only kept a few bucks every day to keep myself alive, letting them search and take the rest.

Until today. Hand clutching the eight dollars of dinner money I had gotten in change at the convenience store, I pushed open my front door and immediately sensed something was wrong.

The TV was off. The atmosphere in the living room was unnervingly heavy.

Before I could even take a full step inside, I saw the door to my storage room wide open.

The old folding bed had been flipped. My few winter clothes were shredded to pieces and thrown all over the floor.

My dad was squatting on the floor, prying open my old storage box with a crowbar. My mom was tearing my pillow in half like a rabid dog, cotton stuffing flying everywhere.

And on the couch, Paul shrunk back into the corner, his legs violently bouncing as he gnawed on his fingernails until they bled.

That was a nervous tic he only did when he was terrified out of his mind.

"Where is the money?!" Hearing my footsteps, my mom snapped her head around, her eyes bloodshot. She lunged at me, violently grabbing me by the collar. "The money you've been stashing from that rich bitch! Cough it all up right now!"

"I don't have any hidden money. I gave it all to you. Look, this is just today's dinner money," I frowned, grabbing her wrist, my peripheral vision darting to the couch. "What did Paul do this time?"

"He crashed into someone's car. The Cross Gang's car!" My dad threw down the crowbar and approached with a dark, threatening glare. "They gave us three days to hand over twenty thousand dollars in compensation, or they're chopping off Paul's hand tomorrow! You've been hanging around the rich district every day, there's no way you're broke. Empty your pockets right now!"

The Cross Gang.

The most ruthless loan-sharking gang on the block.

No wonder Paul was scared out of his wits.

"His car caused the wreck. What does that have to do with me?" I took a step back.

But it was too late.

My dad lunged forward, wrapping his thick arm around my neck, and with a sweep of his leg, slammed me brutally onto the floor. Before I could even resist, his knee was digging heavily into my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

"Search him!" he roared at my mom.

She squatted down, tearing at my pockets like a lunatic.

With a loud rip, my thin jacket was torn apart. The eight one-dollar bills I had clenched in my fist were snatched away as she forcefully pried my fingers open.

After double and triple-checking that I didn't even have a single penny left, she stared at the eight dollars in her hand and slapped me across the face out of pure exasperation.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Twenty thousand! And you come back with eight bucks?!"

Seeing me pinned securely to the ground, Paul on the couch suddenly found his courage.

He walked over in his $1,200 limited-edition sneakers, raised his foot, and with the exact sole that had stepped in dog shit and cigarette butts, stomped mercilessly onto the right side of my face.

The force was immense.

My cheekbone was crushed against the freezing, dirty tiles.

The putrid water seeping from the tile grout smeared directly onto my lips.

"You useless trash, acting like a dog for others every day and you can't even scrape together some decent fat?" Paul spat at me as he ground his shoe into my face. "You're worse than a stray!"

Blinding pain radiated from my grating cheekbone.

If this were the past, I would have struggled and roared.

But right now, I didn't even have the urge to fight back.

With my vision blocked by his filthy shoe sole, I simply closed my eyes.

My consciousness silently dove into the Virtual Space.

In that instant, my parents' curses and my brother's mockery completely faded away.

Replacing it was the low-frequency hum of the four Turbo Diesel-Electric Engines running on standby.

In that infinite, pitch-black spiritual sea, a heavily armored Ark as massive as a mountain range of steel hovered in silence.

The rotary machine gun turrets let off a cold, mechanical glint. The acid-resistant titanium alloy paneling on the outer hull could withstand armor-piercing shells.

In here, I was the absolute god of a three-billion-dollar war machine. With just a single thought, the fifty-thousand-volt grid could incinerate any intruder to ash.

Yet in reality, my face was being trampled by my family, and I was getting slapped over eight dollars.

What a ridiculously farcical contrast!

"Enough!"

My dad irritably shoved Paul aside. "It's a twenty-thousand-dollar hole! And these eight bucks are useless! What the hell are we going to give the gang tomorrow? Are we going to pay with our lives?"

My mom tightly gripped the eight dollars, staring at me on the floor, her eyes shifting wildly.

Suddenly, she grabbed my dad's shoulder and pulled him toward the corner of the kitchen.

The two lowered their voices, whispering frantically.

A few minutes later, my dad's heavy breathing steadied, and the deep wrinkle between his brows loosened.

The way he looked at me now was like looking at a piece of inventory ready to be shipped out.

My mom walked over, even reaching out to dust off my clothes. A rare, hypocritically sorrowful frown crept onto her face.

"Arthur, don't blame Mom. Mom was just too anxious earlier." She let out a fake sigh. "You have no money, and I know you can't help it. But if we don't bring out twenty thousand, we'll lose this house."

I didn't say a word, just watched her performance with cold eyes.

"How about this," my mom said, feigning casualness. "Mom contacted an old friend from the Old East District. He opened an underground chop shop and happens to need a bold test driver. You go report to him tomorrow. They pay cash on the spot, and the salary is exceptionally high. Just endure it for a bit, take this debt off your brother's shoulders, okay?"

The Old East District.

A lawless slum swarming with gangs and underground clinics.

Test driving a car for twenty thousand in cash?

Even Chloe’s purebred French Bulldog wasn't priced at twenty thousand.

Looking at my mother’s shifting eyes and my father’s guilty, forced smile, a wave of physical nausea rose in my stomach.

They weren't sending me to work!

They were planning to sell me.

"Okay."

But I agreed anyway, nodding obediently. "I'll go first thing tomorrow morning."

The apocalypse was coming tomorrow. Once I walked out that door, I was heading straight to Chloe's. Who gave a damn about some chop shop in the Old East District?

Seeing my prompt agreement, my mother visibly let out a massive sigh of relief. "Mom’s good boy. Go to bed early tonight and get plenty of rest."

I ignored them, dragging my aching body back to the balcony.

Behind me, my "family" returned to normal. My dad even started whistling, and Paul comfortably picked his phone back up.

On the torn calendar hanging in the corner, the countdown in my bottom right vision continued to tick: [Countdown to World-Ending Acid Flood — 14 Hrs 12 Mins].

I cracked the window open slightly.

The rain outside had turned into a dense, fine drizzle.

But when the raindrops landed on the rusty iron bars outside my window, they didn't splash. Instead, there was a faint hiss.

Under the dim glow of the streetlamp, I watched the yellow paint on the iron bars blister and turn black as faint wisps of white smoke drifted into the air.

The rain had fully turned acidic.

Once the torrential downpour hit tomorrow, triggering the terrifying accumulation of water from the past month, the entire world would be swallowed by the flood!