The burning on my forehead had not faded. The symbol spun like a living gear beneath my skin, casting faint glimmers that danced across the walls of my room.
It wasn't a tattoo. It wasn't a hologram. It was something deeper, something carved into me in ways that bone and flesh could not explain.
"User registered. Destiny Mark active."
The mechanical voice echoed once more, dispassionate and cold, before vanishing as if it had only wanted to remind me: I was branded property now.
I collapsed back onto the bed, trembling. My hands covered my face, but that couldn't block the emptiness yawning inside me. A memory, my first pet—gone. The warmth, the laughter, the unconditional love. Torn away.
I clawed at the sheets, trying to bring it back, but there was only absence. A hole where something precious once lived.
Tears stung my eyes.
"What are you doing to me…?" I whispered.
No answer. Only silence.
I don't know how long I lay there, staring at nothing. At some point, a strange sound broke the stillness. A ticking—metallic, uneven, like a broken clock trying to beat again.
Tic.
Tac-tac.
Tic-tic.
My heart stumbled into its rhythm.
I sat up sharply.
In the corner of the room, just beyond the reach of the window's light, the air twisted. Shadows bent like warped glass, and a shimmer of gold began to unfurl. Gears turned, massive and weightless, meshing together in an impossible pattern. They locked, broke apart, and locked again in an endless cycle.
The mark on my forehead seared hotter. My vision blurred, forcing me to stand.
"First transaction detected," the system intoned. "Temporary access granted to the Destiny Market."
The golden gears snapped into alignment and spun wide, tearing open a circular gate.
The world tilted.
I was pulled inside.
I fell.
Or maybe the ground simply vanished beneath me. Darkness swallowed everything. My stomach lurched, and then, suddenly, I landed hard on stone.
The air tasted like iron and dust. A chill seeped into my lungs, threaded with the sharp sting of smoke and something stranger—like the scent of burnt paper.
When I raised my head, my breath caught.
I was standing in a marketplace.
But not the kind with food stalls and busy voices.
This one pulsed like a nightmare made of brass and memory.
Towering clocks loomed where shops should have been, their gears grinding with hypnotic rhythm. Stalls were built from shattered hourglasses, their sand spilling into trays. Instead of fruit or fabric, merchants displayed glowing bottles, mirrors hovering in midair, and glass spheres that throbbed like beating hearts.
I stumbled closer to one stall. An old man with silver beard and hollow eyes lifted a bottle toward me. Inside, light swirled like smoke, flickering with laughter.
"Five years of marital bliss," he said, as if he were offering fresh apples. His voice was cracked, but his tone casual, mercantile.
My mouth went dry. I staggered away, only to nearly bump into a woman who held a mirror. Inside, a child's laughter rang, echoing faintly. The mirror itself trembled, tears trickling down its surface like rain.
She pressed it to the stall's counter, exchanging it for a vial that pulsed with blue fire.
A memory. For something else.
I wanted to scream, to tell them to stop—but my voice stuck in my throat.
A deep vibration rolled through the air. The stalls hushed, the merchants bowed their heads. Even the ticking of the gears seemed to pause.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once:
"Welcome to the Destiny Market."
The ground shifted beneath my feet. A figure materialized in the center of the square.
He looked human. Almost.
He wore a flawless black suit that fit his long, lean body as if tailored by shadows. Over his face sat a mask of gold shaped like a clock without hands, gleaming as though molten. The mask reflected me back at myself—small, broken, trembling.
The moment my eyes locked on him, the mark on my forehead erupted in fire.
I knew. Instantly.
The Broker.
My pulse thundered.
"W-what are you?" My voice cracked, barely more than a breath.
He tilted his head, studying me. The motion was slow, deliberate, like the turn of an ancient key.
"I am the guardian of balance," he said, voice resonant and smooth as silk. "The administrator of this market. The one who buys and sells the only currency that truly matters: destiny."
He raised one hand, and with a snap of his fingers, a screen appeared in front of me.
User: Luna Méndez
Fate Score: -80
Status: Active Debt
Mark: Registered
History: 1 transaction completed (personal memory)
The Broker's mask gleamed as he leaned closer.
"Your destiny was sold before you ever had the chance to refuse. But don't despair. You can still… negotiate."
The word sent a shiver crawling down my spine.
"Negotiate?" My voice shook. "You mean… give you more pieces of me until there's nothing left?"
His laugh was soft, elegant, a hollow echo that made the gears around us tremble.
"Every transaction is an attempt to balance your debt. But beware: fail to uphold a contract, and the Market collects—with interest."
The air around us cracked like splitting glass. The stone beneath my feet fractured, exposing a bottomless abyss that pulsed with red light. It felt hungry.
I staggered back, knees buckling.
"What happens if… if I refuse?"
The Broker's golden mask tilted, and I swore I felt a smile beneath it.
"Then you cease to exist."
The abyss yawned wider. A roar filled my ears, not sound but inevitability. I dropped to my knees, the ground shaking beneath me. My nails dug into the stone, desperate to hold on.
The system's voice cut through, monotone but cruel:
"Warning: User in active debt. Next penalty in 12h 00m."
Twelve hours. That was all.
Twelve hours before the Market demanded more.
My chest seized. "This is a nightmare…"
The Broker tilted his head again, his voice silken, almost amused.
"No, Luna. This is your reality. And it has only just begun."
He snapped his fingers.
The marketplace shattered like glass.
I fell again, dragged backward through darkness, gears grinding around me, laughter echoing faintly.
And then—I woke.
My body hit the bed as if I had been dropped from the ceiling. I gasped, clutching at the sheets, lungs burning.
The mark still burned on my forehead. No dream could leave a scar like this.
My digital clock glowed in the corner: 6:03 p.m.
And in front of me, the system's screen floated, words sharp as a blade:
Time remaining: 11h 59m
Next transaction required.
I sat there, shaking, the room cold and foreign around me.
The first had been a memory.
What would the second demand?