"Wake up, push yourself… and receive whatever comes at the end of the day.
It has always been this way, ever since mankind learned to measure its own actions.
Wake up, step off the path… and accept the sentence waiting for you at the end of the day.
That's how Caerius learned."
"You piece of shit!"
The old hotel owner kicked the dorm door with uncoordinated but violent strength.
"Get out! Now! This isn't a charity center, Caerius!"
Enraged, she grabbed the poor tenant and dragged him out of his "comfortable" moldy bed. He fell onto the filthy floor, his face pressing into a mix of rotting residue and moss. Definitely not pleasant.
"Pay for your stay! It's been almost two and a half months! Three weeks is the limit, you know that!"
"Ugh… my head…"
Caerius groaned, wiping his dirty face and cleaning off whatever stuck to him, then looked up and gave her an automatic smile.
"Ah, Miss Clancy! You look… impeccable, as always."
Maybe she wasn't all that impeccable.
"Aaah, you know… I still haven't received my payment and—"
His cynical smile was cut short by a guttural scream, spit flying everywhere.
"No more excuses! I've given you chance after chance, Caerius! That's enough. Pack your things and get the hell out of my sight!"
She spat on the floor before storming out, slamming the door so hard that a cloud of dust rose — as if a group of heavy smokers had lived in that room for years.
What a shitty situation, Caerius…
He sighed. He'd have to sleep at work again… or on a bench in the square.
Well, at least it would smell better than sewage and mold.
"Old hag… I'm a loyal customer and she treats me like this? Okay, I really did take more than two months to pay… but who cares?! I'm a man of my word. I always pay!"
Paying.
Something Caerius took very seriously. Sometimes too seriously.
After quickly packing his things, he went down the stairs with his "luggage," not even bothering to tidy the bed he slept in. He stopped at the counter, leaned an arm on it, and stared at the owner.
"Come on, Miss Clancy. How about one more chance? I'll pay the two and a half months with fees if you want. Soooo… what do you say?"
"Get out, Caerius. And never come back."
Her voice ripped through Caerius like a tree being uprooted for bearing no good fruit.
She didn't even look at his face one last time.
Outside the hotel, stepping in muddy puddles and breathing sewage, he muttered:
"Just my luck…"
"Caerius, man! Kicked out of another hotel?!"
A homeless guy shouted from a corner, laughing.
"Keep going like this and you'll get fired too, then you can live with me under the viaduct! Hahaha!"
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline this generous offer!"
Caerius replied, waving.
"Though… it would cut down expenses, right? But I'd miss a warm bed."
He kept walking, greeting familiar faces along the way. The night, along with flickering streetlights, lit the puddles on the asphalt, reflecting patched buildings, crowded houses… a timid neon touch, but enough to keep lives functioning in that suburb, creating memories.
"Zack, you tripping again?"
Caerius approached his friend, who was talking to a wall, eyes lost in hallucination.
"Caerius, you won't believe it! I became a superspy! I infiltrated the secret base of the Humans Upper!"
He placed a finger over Caerius's lips.
"Shhh… quiet. They're aiming at our heads…"
Caerius smiled — calm and sad.
"Good luck with the infiltration. Tell me later how it went when you arrest the boss."
"Caerius…"
A female voice called from behind, echoing softly inside his ears.
Nemis approached. Old long-sleeved crop top, skirt reaching her knees, eyepatch, scar on her lip. Suspicious look.
"You know that feeding Zack's delusions doesn't help. It only makes his pathetic state worse."
"There's nothing to do, Nemis. He's already at rock bottom. It's only a matter of time before he overdoses. I'd rather he die thinking he's living something exciting… than in this shitty reality."
Nemis sighed, running her hand behind her neck and spitting on the ground.
"Yeah, yeah… this time you came up with a more convincing excuse than the last ones. Anyway, you should hurry… you're probably late for work. But listen, meet me later… I need to talk to you."
Caerius clenched his teeth, his expression hardening.
"Don't treat me like a kid. I know what I'm doing."
Short.
Rough.
Direct.
He ruffled Zack's hair, said a quick "see you" to Nemis, and moved on.
"Yes… you always do," she murmured, taking a drag from her cigarette.
30 minutes later…
Caerius entered an alley lit by orange neon, turned right, and stopped in front of a door with the phrase:
"Stealing isn't wrong, unless you get caught."
He knocked with the back of his hand.
"RUSK!!"
Silence.
Impatience.
"Open this damn door, you lazy fuck!"
"HOLD ON, DAMMIT!"
A voice yelled from inside.
Caerius waited, irritated. His foot tapped the ground, his fingers drummed on his arms. Zack, Nemis, Clancy… everything piled up in his head. He'd pay any price to undo that shitty situation.
The door opened.
"Fucking hell, Rusk! What took you so long?!"
He stepped into the messy warehouse full of computers. Chaotic… but it smelled way better than the hotel.
"Chill, man! I just woke up, had to boot all this stuff fast! Lots of clients today… but it'll bring in good money!"
Rusk said, sitting in front of a PC.
"And that face? Let me guess… I know! Kicked out of another hotel?"
Caerius threw his stuff in a corner and dropped into a chair.
"Don't piss me off, Rusk. I'll have to sleep here again because of that old hag."
Rusk narrowed his eyes.
"…
You sure that's all? You've been through that before… and you don't usually react like this."
Caerius looked away.
"Relax, man. Just… forget it. Let's get to work."
Caerius, a natural-born programmer, worked side-by-side with his friend Rusk — though each excelled in different fields. Rusk was the type the corporate world loved: he built websites, apps, pretty systems, and solved problems for high-class companies with the patience of a digital therapist.
Caerius took another path.
A quieter one.
Dirtier.
And far more dangerous.
He worked with reconstruction — the most thankless and most valuable part of technology. While others built something from scratch, he dove into broken systems, corroded, abandoned, searching for flaws, reorganizing the impossible. He found cracks… and sealed them.
From military security to digital bank vaults, Caerius understood the kind of architecture that shouldn't exist — and precisely because of that, it did.
Rusk knew how to create worlds.
Caerius knew how they collapsed.
Despite all that talent, Caerius stayed there: in the slums, sleeping in filthy hotels, living off scraps, ignoring the chance to be rich — and he really could be. Just accept half a dozen contracts from wealthy businessmen and he'd never touch mud or hear Clancy's voice again.
But Caerius didn't leave.
He never had.
And he had a very big reason for that.
Big enough to keep him tied to the place where sewage met neon.
Big enough to make him reject all the luxury he could've bought.
Big enough to make him hide skills worth fortunes to the wrong kind of people.
And still, Caerius stayed there, chained to the slums.
Rejecting riches, rejecting opportunities, rejecting escape.
For a personal reason.
"How are the client jobs going, man?" Rusk asked.
"Easy. Rich folks paying a fortune to fix idiotic malware. Not that I'm complaining. Makes my life easier as hell."
Caerius said with cynical mockery, leaning back in the patched ergonomic chair and resting his feet on the setup desk.
"Did you see the attack this week in central Vallum? Lots of people died, Humans Upper is freaking out…"
Rusk said, opening an energy drink and mixing it with alcohol before taking a long chug.
"Yeah… and they say one of their members was killed and humiliated. Whoever did that only made things worse."
Caerius said, sighing as his expression shifted into something like rising concern and anger.
"Even so, everyone idolizes HU, thinking they're the heroes while their people die. Those deaths were literally caused by them, and they still don't see it. Makes me sick."
Rusk spun his chair toward Caerius.
"And to think the one giving them headaches is one of their own experiments… it's almost funny. But I bet she's not shaken."
Rusk tossed the can at Caerius, who caught it mid-air and threw it in the nearest trash bin.
He returned to his PC, opened a folder, right-clicked an image, and sent it to Caerius's computer.
"Look at this. A wanted poster."
The photo showed Arthur — one Darian had taken and sent to Humans Upper, then deleted — with the following text:
---
NOTICE TO THE POPULATION
This individual threatens the peace, order, and stability built through sacrifice by Humans Upper.
Arthur is considered extremely dangerous, displaying aggressive, unstable, and cruel behavior, having murdered in cold blood one of our most loyal members.
Any citizen who sees him — or witnesses the manifestation of any anomaly other than him — must immediately report it to the nearest surveillance unit.
Let's make Vallum a better city for our citizens.
---
Caerius's fingers trembled.
A boy avoiding the destiny of being captured.
And innocent people dying because of it.
"Why doesn't he just turn himself in? Doesn't he see that as long as he keeps this up, people will di—"
He stopped.
A flash in his mind.
Old. Painful.
"Well… whatever. As long as this shit doesn't mess with our work, fuck it. Right, man?!"
Caerius smiled with sarcasm and his usual animation, spun the chair, jumped up, passed by Rusk and slapped his chest.
"I'll grab more energy drinks from the freezer…"
…
How heavy is guilt, to the point of sacrificing your whole future to try to make up for it…?