Day 030 Hour 06: Fracture
I didn't go straight to the next stop.
I couldn't.
I ducked into an alley two blocks from the market, where the wall behind the shuttered print shop always stayed in shadow. I crouched there, back against the concrete, and pulled both bills out of the envelope.
They looked the same.
They felt the same.
But I knew they weren't.
I held them side by side, running my thumb over their corners. One crisped slightly more at the edge. The other had a scent that was one breath lighter. But both were perfect. Too perfect.
And that was the problem.
This wasn't an exchange.
It was a replacement.
A swap so clean it made me feel dirty.
I pocketed the new bill and buried the old one deep in my pouch — not out of greed, but because I didn't trust either of them anymore. Something in me recoiled at the idea of using them. Like money that wasn't earned but conjured.
Was it a warning? A challenge? Or just another test I didn't know I was already failing?
The quiet in the alley answered for me.
None of those.
It was a message.
We already know what you'll do.
Day 030 Hour 08: Terms and Conditions
I left the alley with the bills still heavy in my pocket — heavier than paper had any right to be. I took the side road toward the corner stand that sold everything from bootleg batteries to outdated city maps. It wasn't far. Maybe four blocks. Maybe five. I walked slower than usual.
Then the phone buzzed.
Just once. No notification sound. Just the vibration — short, deliberate.
I pulled it out of the pouch.
One new message:
{The $100 Club}Clarification of Protocol – Month 2The first $100 is a gift.Do with it as you please.The second $100 is to be used exclusively to complete your assigned task.Use of any funds outside the second bill will be treated as forfeit.There will be no second chance.Proceed accordingly.
I stopped walking.
There was no signature. No timestamp. No way to respond.
I read the message twice, then a third time — as if one of the lines might change the longer I stared at it.
So the first bill… was mine?
Just like that?
I could burn it, spend it, save it, throw it down a drain — and they wouldn't care?
It didn't feel like a gift. It felt like bait. Like a social experiment wrapped in linen paper.
But it didn't matter.
The second one — the one they gave me inside the market — was now the mission.
It was a line in the sand. A surgical division between freedom and obedience. One could feed me. The other could get me killed.
So I opened the pouch and separated them.
One went into my back pocket, loose and quiet.
The other — the mission bill — stayed in the pouch, sealed beside the instruction envelope.
A gift and a weapon.
Both crisp.
Both watching.
Day 030 Hour 09: What Gifts Cost
I walked the next block without realizing it. The phone was still in my hand, screen dark now, but the words hadn't stopped echoing.
The first $100 is a gift.Do with it as you please.The second $100 is to be used exclusively to complete your assigned task.
A gift.
They said it like it meant something good.
But in my world, a "gift" is just a debt that hasn't told you its terms yet.
I stopped in front of a boarded-up bakery — the glass long shattered, the lettering on the sign above so sun-bleached it looked like a warning in a forgotten language. This used to be a place where kids bought sweet bread after school. Now, it was just another husk. Another cavity in a city full of broken teeth.
I leaned against the wall, still holding the phone.
There's a kind of math you learn growing up poor. Not arithmetic — that's for people who have things. No, this math is different. It's instinctual. A constant calculation of what you can risk, what you can afford to lose, and what invisible cost will come due later.
And that's why the message didn't sit right with me.
Because if the first $100 is a gift, then it's not for the mission.
It's for me.
Me. Nemi. Broke. Net worth negative. The kind of person who counts leftover broth as a second meal. They gave me freedom and discipline in the same breath — told me "do as you please" with one hand, and "don't step out of line" with the other.
And I hated how much I wanted to believe it.
That maybe, just maybe, I'd earned something.
I pulled out the two bills again, holding them like twin mirrors.
Identical in weight, in scent, in the subtle way their edges resisted the wind.
But they weren't the same. Not anymore.
One of them was mine. Allegedly.
The other was a leash.
And the part of me that still dreamed of escape — that little ember I'd buried under months of failure and bitterness — it asked the forbidden question:
What if I just take the gift and walk away?
I could stretch that $100 for a month. More, if I hustled. Maybe catch a bus to another city. Restart. Disappear. Forget the Club. Forget the rules. Forget that anyone ever pushed an envelope under my door like a contract written in silence.
I almost smiled.
But I didn't.
Because I knew the truth: they'd still find me.
They didn't need to threaten me. Their silence was the threat. Their precision, their systems — these weren't amateurs playing with street kids. This was machinery. Cold, elegant, and much older than me.
They already knew what kind of person I was.
That's why the gift wasn't a mistake.
It was a mirror.
They wanted to see what I'd do with freedom.
And that terrified me more than any of the missions.
I reached the corner where the vendor usually set up his rack of outdated supplies and faded newsprint maps. He wasn't there yet — probably still unpacking behind the curtain — but I could hear the rattle of crates and the slap of newspapers being stacked.
I stood still for a moment longer, hands in my hoodie pocket, fingers tracing the edge of the mission bill like it might whisper a clue.
I knew what I had to do.
I had to finish the task. On their terms. By their dollar. No deviations.
But the other bill — the gift — I'd keep it. I wouldn't spend it.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Let it sit in my pocket like a question.
A test.
Or a threat.
Either way, I'd carry it.
Like I carried every other lie I've told myself just to survive.