Ethan eased the door open with the kind of care one gives to things that creak in protest. The hinges groaned softly as though grumbling about the late hour, and he stepped into the apartment that—despite its size and shortcomings—had always been home.
The air greeted him like an old friend, carrying with it the faint, lingering smell of dinner and the musty comfort that clung stubbornly to old places. He paused, closing the door behind him, and allowed the familiar scent to settle around him.
'Skipped lunch again,' he thought with a rueful smile, as his stomach gave an indignant growl to remind him that one can't live on routine alone.
He placed the grocery bag on the worn kitchen counter, the plastic rustling in the stillness, and let his gaze drift over the room. There wasn't much to see, but that didn't mean there wasn't much to feel.
The wallpaper—once cheerful, now peeling in modest surrender—caught the faint light of the flickering bulb overhead. The old sofa sat valiantly in the corner, propped up at one end by a precariously stacked set of books (a solution Ethan himself had proudly devised).
The place wasn't beautiful in the usual sense, but beauty has a funny way of redefining itself where love lingers.
He let out a quiet breath and was just about to lose himself in the small comfort of being home when the sharp sound of voices sliced through the calm.
"I'm doing everything I can, Elise! Do you think I can pull money out of thin air?"
His father's voice carried down the narrow hallway, rough with frustration. Ethan froze, the small warmth in his chest dissolving as disappointment settled in its place.
"And what do you think I'm doing, Aaron?" came his mother's reply, weary and ragged like a frayed thread. "I'm on double shifts. Double. But rent's due, and the kids need things for school—how am I supposed to stretch this any thinner?"
Their voices rose and fell like waves against a rocky shore. Ethan stood rooted in place as though moving might make the words sharper or the reality heavier.
'It's the same fight,' he thought, a sick twist in his stomach. The one that starts quietly and ends loudly, with nothing changed except the air left thick with silence afterward.
His father worked at the factory in town, a job that was steady but unforgiving in its limits. The pay always fell just short of comfortable—like a jumper that shrank in the wash but still had to do.
Ethan's mother, Elise, was a nurse, often gone before sunrise and back long after dark, the hours etched into her face like faint pencil lines. She worked as though the house itself might crumble if she dared to stop.
And despite all of it—the endless shifts, the carefully counted coins—it was never enough. Not when the time rolled around and brought with it school lists that might as well have been letters of demand.
Lily, bright-eyed and twelve, had outgrown her shoes again. Jacob, at fourteen, needed notebooks, new pencils, and the odd bit of dignity only a teenager can attach to a half-decent jacket.
They were smart kids, both of them full of dreams and energy, and Ethan sometimes wished he could carry their burdens for them, if only so they could keep running ahead.
He gripped the counter, his knuckles pale against the cold surface, and let the voices wash over him—his parents' frustration bleeding into each syllable, carried by exhaustion and love and the crushing reality of simply trying to survive.
There was nothing new in this argument, and yet it still struck like the first time, each word a quiet pull of guilt, as though he were somehow responsible for not being able to fix it.
Ethan glanced at the grocery bag he'd brought in, filled with the bare essentials: bread, milk, eggs. A small offering that didn't quite feel like enough.
'I'll help. I'll figure it out,' he promised silently to no one in particular.
It wasn't a dramatic thought nor a grand declaration. Just a quiet resolve, as natural and unspoken as breathing.
With a deep breath, he straightened, the creak of his movements lost in the argument that still echoed faintly through the walls.
Ethan had never been one for speeches. He preferred action, the kind no one notices, but that makes things a little better anyway.
"Is it possible to ask Ethan to help more?" His father's voice came quietly like a pebble tossed into still water. "He's twenty now—old enough to start contributing more."
There was a pause, the kind that holds more weight than words ever could. Then his mother's voice, gentler but firm, cut through it. "He's already helping, Aaron. He's doing everything he can. We can't lay this all on his shoulders."
Another pause, longer this time and softer. Ethan stood just beyond the doorway, his grip tightening involuntarily.
"He's still in school," she added, quieter now, as though speaking the words aloud might somehow seal them. "He needs to graduate. That's his way out. I won't let us crush that."
Ethan swallowed, the knot in his throat pulling tighter. He knew his father meant no harm—knew, too, that his mother was trying to defend him—but the weight of their words settled heavy 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, long and uneven, followed by something softer.
"I'll figure something out," Aaron said, quieter this time, almost as if to himself. "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 found them there, his parents. His father slumped at one end of the sofa. Nobody knew what was inside his mind right now. He was staring at the worn-out carpet as if waiting for an answer to his problem.
His mother was sitting at the other end. She looked steady enough at first glance, but then again, so does a branch holding too much snow.
"I'm home," Ethan said, his voice softer than he meant it to be, almost apologetic, as though his arrival might only add to their burdens.
His mother turned first. Her eyes, ringed with shadows that hadn't been there a few years ago, softened when they found him. "Hey, honey. Did you get everything?"
"Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck, though it was hardly itchy.
He looked to his father, who hadn't moved and hadn't even blinked. His brow was furrowed, deep in thoughts Ethan couldn't hope to guess.
"Is… everything okay?" he ventured carefully, though the answer seemed obvious enough.
"We're fine," his mother replied with a smile so fragile it might shatter if he touched it. "Just a discussion."
"A discussion," his father repeated, low and dry, shaking his head with the kind of bitterness that didn't need to be loud to be heard. "Seems more like an argument to me."
The room settled again into its thick silence, the kind that made everything feel smaller and heavier.
Ethan stood there, caught like driftwood between two tides, not knowing where to put his hands, or his feet, or his thoughts. And then, quite without warning, it broke free of him. "I'm just so tired of this."
Both of them turned to look at him, startled, as if they'd forgotten he was still there. Ethan didn't say things like this. He never said much at all.
"I'm tired of living like this," he went on, the words rising like water through a dam too quickly to stop now. "We're always just… scraping by. No matter how hard we work, we can't get out."
His voice shook then, and so did his hands. He hadn't realized how tightly he was clenching his fists until they started to ache. "I'm doing everything I can," he said, quieter now but no less fierce. "But it's never enough. Nothing's ever enough."
His mother's eyes glistened in the low light, though she said nothing—her silence both tender and heavy. Ethan looked at his father, whose face remained unreadable at first. Then, slowly, something softened, like a fire burning low but steady.
"I just…" Ethan faltered, his breath catching. He looked down, ashamed of the heat in his eyes. "I just wish I had more money. That's all. If I had that, I could fix everything. We wouldn't have to live like this anymore. I'd make it right. We'd live the way we're supposed to."
The words seemed foolish as soon as they left his mouth. More money. As though he were a child, closing his eyes to make a wish on a dandelion and hoping the wind would listen.
And just as the silence threatened to swallow him whole—
CRACK!
A thunderclap ripped through the air, loud and close enough to rattle the thin walls, followed immediately by the rush of rain, heavy and sudden.
Ethan flinched at the sound, his cheeks reddening further as though the heavens themselves had chosen to punctuate his outburst.
For a moment, no one moved. The rain hammered the windows with an urgency all its own, drowning out even the breath of the room. How foolish he'd been. More money?
The world didn't work like that. It was already crowded with men and women who had wished for exactly that—who had stared up at the same indifferent sky and received nothing for their trouble but the sound of their own hearts breaking.
He scrubbed a sleeve across his face, turning his back to them, ashamed to be seen like this. "Sorry," he muttered hoarsely. "I didn't mean to—"
"I know, son," Aaron said, cutting him off—not unkindly but with the weariness of a man who had heard too much truth to argue with it. He ran a rough hand through his graying hair and sighed. "I know."
Ethan didn't look back. He couldn't. If there was disappointment on his father's face, he couldn't bear to see it. And if there was understanding, well… that might be worse.
The rain poured on, loud and relentless, as if the sky itself were trying to share in their struggles. And for a while, they simply sat there—three people, tired and silent, listening to the storm as it filled the spaces where words didn't belong.
Nothing had changed. The cracks were still there. The world was still heavy. But for a moment, it felt as though the rain understood them—spoke for them. And that, at least, was something.
***
Hours later, long after the rest of the house had given itself over to sleep, Ethan lay flat on his narrow bed, staring up at the water-stained ceiling as though it might whisper back the answers to all his questions.
The rain outside drummed on harder now, each drop tapping insistently against the glass like a child who refused to be ignored.
The storm had outlasted the arguments, outlasted his frustration, and now seemed content to keep him awake in the quiet darkness.
The anger that had swelled in him earlier had ebbed away like a tide that leaves behind nothing but a stretch of hollow, empty sand.
In its place was something colder, sharper—a sense of helplessness that sat heavy in his chest. His family was trying so hard, but sometimes trying felt like shouting into the wind.
Rolling onto his side with a sigh, Ethan reached for his phone. The screen lit up, and he squinted against the brightness.
Perhaps some aimless scrolling—cat videos, absurd memes, articles he'd half-read and forget—would help lull his brain into something resembling rest.
But the moment he unlocked the screen, an unfamiliar notification bloomed across it like a strange flower.
[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 sole recipient of the Unlimited System.]
He blinked once, then twice. Sole recipient? 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 Activated. Initial Reward: Unlimited Money. Current Balance: $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."
Hands trembling—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 avoid triggering suspicion. The funds are recorded as an investment from a large corporation to prevent bank intervention. This is only the beginning.]
Ethan let the phone drop into his lap, staring at the wall as though it might offer a better explanation. 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—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—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.