The countdown marched on, merciless.
17h 02m 15s
The digits glowed in the air like molten iron, etched in front of my eyes as though the system had branded them into my bones. Each second was not just time passing—it was a blade descending, a pulse that seared deeper into my skin.
I tried to ignore it. I tried to convince myself it wasn't real. But the mark on my forehead flared hotter with every passing beat. The gear pulsed in rhythm with my heart, grinding, alive, a parasite embedded beneath flesh.
I couldn't keep running.
I sat on the edge of the bed, nails digging crescents into the sheets, and opened the list of transactions again. The screen obeyed instantly, appearing with a cold shimmer.
Initial Transactions Available:
+20 Fate Score → One personal memory
+50 Fate Score → One basic skill
+100 Fate Score → One year of your life
The words were stark, clinical. But I didn't see text—I saw knives.
A memory.
A skill.
A year.
The memory option glowed faintly brighter, as if the system knew where I was weakest. As if it could sense the tiny cracks in me and wedge its steel into them.
I bit my lip until I tasted copper. One memory. How bad could it be? Something had already been stolen—the blurred birthday cake, my mother's laughter erased. Maybe this was the proof there was no other path. No escape.
I leaned toward the screen and thought of the first option. The system answered at once, its precision surgical, its indifference absolute.
Select a memory:
Your first kiss
The day you learned to ride a bike
Your seventeenth birthday
A childhood friendship
Your first pet
My chest constricted. Each word carved a wound.
The day I learned to ride a bike. My father's hand steady on the seat, his voice telling me not to be afraid. The crash onto gravel, the sting in my knees. His laugh—warm, proud—when I finally pedaled alone.
I clutched my mouth. If I gave that away, I would never remember it again. As if my father had never stood behind me, never steadied me, never laughed.
A memory wasn't just a fragment. It was proof I existed. Proof someone had been there. If I surrendered that proof, what would I be?
"I can't…" My voice cracked, tears burning the corners of my eyes.
The clock ticked down another second.
17h 01m 44s
The burning on my forehead blazed brighter, forcing me to look. The gear turned, alive, gnashing against my skin like a mechanical predator.
The mechanical voice returned, flat and merciless:
"Warning: unpaid debts will be collected with your existence."
And then—another voice.
Not metallic. Not clinical. Human.
Low. Cold. Icy smooth.
"Choose. Or someone else will choose for you."
I froze. Every hair on my arms rose. This wasn't the system. This was him. The one who lurked behind the screen. The hand moving the gears.
The Broker.
My pulse stuttered.
I shut my eyes, trembling, but the voice lingered in my skull like smoke.
A memory. Just a memory. Not everything.
I inhaled a shuddering breath. My mind darted toward the smallest option: Your first pet.
The system responded instantly.
White light erupted, swallowing me whole.
The pain struck at once. Not in my body—no cuts, no burns—but in the deepest part of me. My mind tore open, as if someone had clawed out a page of my soul.
I reached for it, desperate. The smell of fur. The weight curled at the foot of my bed. A wet nose nudging my hand. The joy of childish laughter echoing in the park.
Gone.
All of it.
I groped through the abyss and found nothing but silence. A hole. A blank white scar where a living presence had been.
The scream that left me had no sound. It ripped my throat raw, but it was devoured by the emptiness left behind.
The screen blinked with sterile indifference:
Transaction Complete.
+20 Fate Score
New Score: -80
I collapsed onto the floor, hands pressed flat against the cold wood, sobbing.
I couldn't remember who I had loved, who had waited for me by the door when I came home, who had followed me faithfully as a child. My childhood had lost its heartbeat.
The emptiness was worse than death. Death ends a life. This erased proof it had ever been lived.
Then the mark on my forehead blazed like fire.
The gear expanded, luminous, searingly clear, runes orbiting it like satellites. They pulsed in rhythm with my frantic heartbeat, and for a terrifying moment I swore they pulsed with the rhythm of the world itself—the hum of the street outside, the tick of the clock on my nightstand, all falling into synchronization.
I staggered to the mirror and recoiled.
There it was. The Mark of Destiny.
Not imagined. Not metaphor.
A burning seal, etched into me, impossible to hide. Its edges turned and clicked like a mechanical eye watching everything.
My breath came in shallow gasps. My skin was clammy, my vision blurred.
"What have you done to me…?" My whisper sounded so small.
The system's voice answered without hesitation, cold as the void:
User officially registered.
Destiny Mark activated.
All future transactions will be branded onto your forehead.
The words pierced me deeper than any blade. Officially registered. I was not just a woman anymore. I was a file. A record. A property.
Tears streaked hot down my face.
I was no longer just Luna Méndez.
I was a commodity. A resource. A product in a market I hadn't agreed to enter.
The pain dulled, but the emptiness gnawed like a starving animal inside me.
I dragged myself to the bed, curled up, knees to chest. My arms tightened around myself in a desperate attempt to feel whole. To prove I was still here.
But the silence of my missing memory screamed louder than anything.
Then, without warning, the room flared red.
A flash like a warning siren lit the walls. The mark on my forehead flared, scalding.
And a new voice filled the room.
Not mechanical. Not neutral.
Human. Deep. Resonant.
Dripping with irony.
"Welcome to the Market, Luna Méndez."
My lungs seized. The air thinned as if the voice itself had devoured it.
"I am the Broker. From now on, your destiny belongs to me… until you pay what you owe."
My throat closed tight. I tried to speak, to scream, but no sound left me.
The mark blazed one final time, like a brand signed in fire.
And the voice added, with the quiet satisfaction of a predator who has just cornered its prey:
"Don't forget, user… every deal is a trap."
The screen vanished. The red glow died.
Silence returned.
But the reflection did not lie.
The glowing seal burned on my forehead, alive, pulsing, marking me for the world I could no longer escape.