Chapter 3

Living the past few days felt like walking on a tightrope. I spent my time tracking the "Blackout Freeze" through climate analysis snippets buried in fringe forums, confirming it was approaching with terrifying precision, while playing the part of a normal, doomed youth.

Luke showed up on the third evening.

The wind outside had turned eerie—carrying the smell of industrial waste and ice shards, whistling through the streets like a shriek. I sat in the dim living room with a six-pack of cheap beer. When Luke entered, he didn't even bother to shake the snow from his expensive wool coat. His movements were excessively light, though the slight twitching of his muscles betrayed his nervous excitement.

He sat across from me, popping open a beer. "Bro, these crazy dreams I've been having... they're driving me nuts."

"Crazy dreams?" I took a sip, letting the cheap fluid linger on my tongue.

"Yeah," he laughed, though his gaze—vague and searching—kept drifting toward the hidden compartment under my desk. "I dream you’ve become someone incredible. On TV, bathed in all that light. The whole city is cheering, and I… I’m the safest one, the one being protected."

My stomach turned cold. The content of his dream overlapped perfectly with his role in my past life—a beneficiary of the "glory" born from my sacrifice. He remembered the feeling of being at the top, the lack of hunger, the lack of fear.

"That’s just a dream, Luke," I said, slamming my beer bottle on the table with a feigned, drunken lethargy. "The reality? That thing is a high-risk experiment. If it fails, I’m dead meat."

"Does it really fail?" he leaned in closer, his pupils dilated by greed, looking like a starving wolf.

I swayed, pretending to be dizzy, and stood up as if to head for the bathroom. "Drink up if you want. I'm going to take a shower; my head is killing me."

I walked slowly, intentionally jingling the keys in my pocket. I knew he needed space, and I stood behind the slightly ajar bathroom door, watching the living room through the gap with the cold, calm eyes of someone who had survived countless life-or-death games.

Luke stood up immediately. He moved with a neurotic, cautious grace, bypassing the coffee table and locking onto my desk. He rifled through my papers with a frantic, desperate intensity that proved he knew damn well these weren't ordinary bills.

Click.

With a soft sound, the hidden compartment popped open. He froze, his fingers trembling violently as he gripped the silver cylinder emitting a faint blue glow. His breathing grew as heavy as cattle in the silence.

It was the boarding pass he’d been dreaming of. He thought it was the key to the throne, not realizing it was a ticket to the gallows.

I lay back on the sofa, turned away, and closed my eyes, adjusting my breathing to that of a sleeping man. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel the electricity of his manic joy vibrating in the air. He stuffed it into his inner pocket, smoothed his coat, and carefully restored the desk.

He returned to the sofa, quiet for half a minute before speaking, "Bro? You asleep?"

I let out a long, practiced snore.

He stood up and left with a light, swift step. At the doorway, he paused. I could feel him looking back at me, his expression likely a cocktail of guilt, ecstasy, and a cruel, self-righteous sense of entitlement.

"Bro... if I can help you later... don't blame me."

It sounded like a confession, but it was really an excuse for his upcoming betrayal.

The door closed. The world went silent. I opened my eyes and stared at the flickering yellow light on the ceiling. Everything was sliding into the abyss, into his own cursed fate. This time, I wouldn't be the hero.

"Don't do something you'll regret," I whispered into the empty room.

The neon lights outside dimmed as the city’s power grid began to fail. I didn't reach out to save the serum. I felt an unprecedented lightness. The heavy, shitty burden of the "hero savior" fell away with the click of that closing door.