Ethan eased the door open, slow and quiet like he was trying not to wake the walls themselves. The hinges gave a tired groan, annoyed at the late hour, but he slipped inside without a sound.
The place was small. A little beat up. Corners chipped, lights that flickered if you breathed wrong. But it was home. Not perfect and never had been.
Ethan closed the door gently behind him. He stood there for a moment. Just letting it all settle. This quiet, worn-down space somehow held him together when everything else was pulling him apart.
'I skipped lunch again,' he remembered as his stomach growled.
He dropped the grocery bag on the counter. The plastic rustled too loud in the stillness. For a second, he just looked around.
Nothing special. Just the same cracked tile, the dented fridge, the scuffed floor. But every inch of it had a memory.
His first solo dinner turned into burnt rice. Jacob's scribbles on the wall near the sink. Lily danced barefoot to old music in the living room.
It wasn't pretty. But it was real. And that counted for more.
Because sometimes, when love hangs around long enough, it starts to look like home, even if the paint's peeling.
Ethan exhaled slowly, ready to finally lean into that fragile comfort, until a voice cut through the stillness.
"I'm doing everything I can, Elise! You think I can pull money out of thin air?"
His father's voice came sharp from the hallway, tense and fraying.
Ethan froze. The warmth he'd let in just moments ago vanished, replaced by something cold and familiar.
His mother's voice followed, strained and tired. "What do you think about me, Aaron? I'm pulling doubles. Rent's due, the kids need things, and I'm already stretched thin."
The argument swelled like waves in a storm. Rising, crashing, never really ending. Just circling the same rocks.
Ethan stayed still, as if moving would only make it worse. The voices weren't new. The fight wasn't new.
Same words. Same pain. No solution, just the heaviness left behind.
His eyes shifted to the bedroom doors down the hall.
'They're listening too... probably just as sad.'
His father worked at a light manufacturing textile factory. The job was steady, sure, but steady didn't mean secure. The pay was always just shy of enough like the world dangled comfort a few inches out of reach.
His mother, Elise, was a nurse. She worked like the house would fall apart if she stopped working. Double shifts, sore feet, fading smiles. All so they could keep the lights on.
But no matter how hard they pushed—how many hours they gave up—it never quite added up. Especially not when the school year crept closer, dragging behind it a list of things they couldn't afford.
Lily, bright-eyed and twelve, had outgrown her shoes again. Jacob, fourteen, needed notebooks, pens, and a jacket that didn't make him feel like he was already losing before he even stepped into school.
They were good kids. Smart. Full of energy and plans bigger than this apartment. And sometimes Ethan wished he could carry all of it for them just so they didn't have to slow down.
The fight in the hallway wasn't new. But it still landed like a punch to the ribs. Quiet. Expected. Still painful.
'I should be able to fix this.'
It was guilt that had nowhere to go. Guilt for not having more to give. Guilt for being in the middle of being too old to be protected, too young to carry it all.
People on the outside might've said his parents were foolish for having three kids when they were not financially stable. But they hadn't always been in survival mode.
Life changed. Fast. And their family changed with it.
'I'll help. I'll figure it out.'
He made the silent promise again, to no one but himself.
With a breath, he straightened. The slight creak in his knee went unheard under the continuing echo of voices down the hall.
"Is it possible to ask Ethan to help more?" his father asked, quieter now. "He's twenty. He's old enough."
Then silence. It was short but heavy.
His mother's voice came next. Soft, but solid. "He already is, Aaron. He's doing everything he can. I've asked."
Another pause. Longer. Thicker.
Ethan stayed by the kitchen, motionless, fingers tightening around the edge of the counter.
"I feel awful," his mother said finally, her voice lower. "He's still in school. He should be focused on that. That's supposed to be his way out."
Her voice cracked a little on the next line. "But we're crushing that..."
Ethan swallowed, the knot in his throat pulling tighter. He knew his father meant no harm. He knew, too, that his mother was trying to defend him, but the weight of their words settled heavily on his chest.
He was the eldest child. And eldest children know, instinctively, that they're to carry what they can and then carry a little more.
Then he heard his father exhale.
"I'll try to figure this out," Aaron said. "I'll ask around at work. See if I can pick up another shift. Or maybe a side job."
"Aaron," Elise replied, and there it was again. That weariness she carried everywhere now, like a coat too heavy for her shoulders. "I'm sorry."
It was always like this. Two people trying to keep the world from splintering apart with hands already burdened. And yet, no matter how hard they tried, the cracks crept wider, quietly and relentlessly, like ivy through old stone.
The weight of it all suddenly pressed too hard on Ethan as though the very air had thickened with strain. He walked toward the living room.
Each step felt heavier.
Ethan could see them now, his parents. They were sitting at the opposite ends of the sofa. Well, it was expected after a fight.
"Mom... Dad," he said. It was a little softer than what he intended. "I'm home."
His mother was the first to turn to him. "Hey, honey. How was your work, today?"
"Everything is good," he said. He then added, "I've bought everything that you asked. On the table... There."
He then glanced at his father. Aaron was still silent.
"Everything alright, Dad?" he asked.
He still asked even though everything was obvious and he had heard everything.
"Of course, Ethan. Everything is fine," his mother said with a forced smile.
His father scoffed under his breath. "Fine?"
The room went quiet again.
Ethan stood there. Right now, he was unsure what to say or how to act. He felt like he'd walked into something already half-collapsed. And maybe that's why it slipped out the way it did.
"Let's not fight anymore," he said.
Not loud. Not angry. Just tired.
His parents both turned to him, surprised. He never spoke up like that.
"I'm tired of this, as much as you do," he continued. "If I just had more money... I could fix things. You wouldn't have to carry so much. We could finally breathe. Just for once."
It sounded stupid as soon as he said it. More money. Like that was all it took. Like wishing hard enough could change anything.
And then—
CRACK.
Thunder split the sky. The kind that makes windows rattle. A second later, the rain came down. Fast and heavy, like it had been waiting for someone to snap first.
Ethan flinched. Heat flushed through his cheeks, the kind that came from being exposed. From saying too much.
"Sorry," he muttered as he turned around. "I meant nothing bad."
"I know," his dad said.
He didn't say it with judgment. Just that quiet tone people used when they didn't have the energy to argue anymore.
"I know," he said again, softer.
Ethan didn't turn around. He didn't want to see whatever was on his father's face. Disappointment, maybe. Or worse—understanding.
✤✤✤
Ethan was lying on his bed. He stared long enough at the stained ceiling. Looking for answers to everything.
He wanted to help his family to pay for the rent. It was due on Friday and today was already Tuesday. He didn't have much time left.
"Can I get another project?"
It had been a while since the last time he posted on his profile at the DoWork. It was an online platform where freelancers like him closed a deal.
He rolled onto his side and reached for his phone. He could try his luck or perhaps some aimless scrolling. Cat videos, absurd memes, articles he'd half-read and forgotten. Those would help lull his brain into something resembling rest.
But the moment he unlocked the screen, an unfamiliar notification bloomed across it.
[Welcome to the Unlimited System]
He frowned. "What on earth…"
It wasn't the usual sort of notification. No missed call, no app update, no friend desperately asking for help in a group chat they'd later delete.
It was stark, oddly deliberate, and no amount of swiping seemed to dismiss it.
"Is this some kind of virus?" Ethan muttered, poking at the screen as though the device might suddenly apologize and fix itself.
But the message remained obstinate, and before he could decide whether to panic or laugh, another line appeared.
[System Activation Complete.]
He sat up sharply, the springs of the mattress creaking in protest. "What the…"
It wasn't his imagination. The words were there, crisp and unblinking. Another message followed, bright against the dark.
[Congratulations, Ethan Cole. You have been chosen as the recipient of the Unlimited System.]
He blinked once, then twice. Unlimited System? It sounded like one of those phishing scams.
"Very funny," he muttered to the empty room.
Still, something—it might have been exhaustion, curiosity, or the plain absurdity of it all—made him tap the screen.
The next message sent a jolt through him.
[Unlimited System Activated.]
[Initial Reward: Unlimited Money.]
[Current Limit: $1,000,000,000.]
He stared at it. Blinked again. And then, because some instincts run deeper than others, he burst out, "Oh, come on. Who's pulling this?"
A billion dollars? A billion? For a moment, he wondered if one of his tech-savvy friends had gone overboard with a prank. After all, it wasn't impossible.
He knew his way around programming well enough to recognize how easy it could be for someone clever—and mischievous—to pull off a trick like this.
But why him?
"Fine," he said aloud to no one, his voice a low challenge. "Let's see how far this joke goes."
His hands trembled. Not from fear but from the bizarre sense that the world had tilted sideways. He opened his banking app.
The logo spun lazily before the screen refreshed. Ethan's heart froze in his chest.
[Account Balance: $1,000,000,000]
There it was. The number sat there, absurd and undeniable, the sort of figure you'd only expect to see on the news when people whispered about hedge funds and tycoons.
He held the phone closer as if proximity might change the digits into something reasonable. But it didn't. It just… sat there.
"What in the world am I looking at?" he whispered, his voice almost reverent.
Before he could fully process its impossibility, another message appeared.
[The system has limited your initial account balance to $1,000,000. The fund is recorded as a dividend payment. This is only the beginning.]
"A billion-dollar dividend? Who's going to believe that?" Ethan let the phone drop into his lap, staring at the wall as though it might offer a better explanation.
This would only make people feel the need to dig further. His three hundred-something dollars had turned into a billion dollars and this was only the beginning?
The words made his skin prickle as if they carried some secret he wasn't quite ready to hear.
And then.
=====
[New Mission Unlock: Improve Your Status]
Description: Use the resources you have to better your life and the lives of your family. Complete missions to gain experience and unlock more abilities.
=====
The phone felt impossibly heavy in his hands now, its glowing screen more surreal than the storm outside. He read the words again. Improve your status and something caught in his throat.
Hours ago, he'd stood in the living room and shouted about money, about wishing he could fix everything. And now this.
Ethan lay back down, still holding the phone, his thoughts racing so quickly they tangled. His earlier anger and helplessness had been replaced by something wilder, more dangerous kind of possibility.
He swiped through the menus that had mysteriously appeared. Missions, skills, status. It looked like something from one of his old video games, but it was far too vivid to dismiss as a dream.
"Maybe I'm losing it," he whispered to himself. "Or maybe the universe has finally developed a sense of humor."
He opened his banking app once more just to check.
[Account Balance: $1,000,000,000]
There it was, waiting for him, as undeniable as the mattress beneath his back or the rain against the window. His heart thudded, fast and unsteady.
'What if…' He stopped, barely able to form the thought. 'What if it's real?'
If this was real—if it was truly, impossibly real—he could fix it. All of it.
Rent. Loans. Bills. His father's quiet despair. His mother's tired smile.
The weight that had been on all of their shoulders for far too long.
"I'll check again in the morning," he murmured, though he knew already that sleep wouldn't come easily tonight.
The phone screen dimmed in his hands as he set it aside, but the glow of possibility remained. It was warm and restless in the corners of his mind.
For the first time in years, Ethan allowed himself to think about tomorrow not with dread but with wonder.
And as the rain drummed on, steady and sure, he drifted into dreams that didn't feel so far away anymore.
Author's Note:
Don't forget to send Golden Tickets and vote with Power Stones.