Chapter 1: Ashes of a Nobody
The rain had a cruel sense of timing.
It came down in sheets just as Evan Kessler stepped out of the rusted service elevator, the flickering fluorescent light above him buzzing like a dying insect.
Drops splattered against his threadbare hoodie, soaking through the fabric and chilling him to the bone. The sky over Greystone City was a blanket of iron-gray clouds, pressing down on the skyline like a judgment.
The gutters overflowed. Traffic lights flickered between red and hopeless amber. No horns. No yelling. Just the sound of rain, like a thousand whispers reminding him of everything he wasn't.
Evan didn't flinch as a passing cab drenched him in a burst of gutter water. He kept walking. The world didn't care, and neither did he. Not anymore.
The apartment behind him—a cramped fifth-floor coffin in a building that smelled like mold and despair—was no longer his. Not after today.
The landlord, a bloated toad of a man named Crayton, had tossed his last box of possessions into the hall like trash. Unpaid rent.
Again. Evan had argued, of course. Shouted even. But what power did a man with empty pockets have? None. The law protected men like Crayton. The system smiled on them. It always had.
His fingers curled around the cracked leather strap of his duffel bag, the last piece of his past life. Inside: a broken laptop, two t-shirts, a half-read copy of Moby Dick, and a photo.
The only photo. A younger Evan, eyes wide with dreams, standing between two people whose faces had become ghosts in his memory.
A man and woman—his parents, he assumed. No names. No history. Just a picture mailed to him by an anonymous source on his seventeenth birthday.
He turned a corner and stepped into an alley, boots crunching broken glass. The city around him pulsed with indifference—steel towers, neon signs, people scuttling through life with umbrellas and briefcases, never looking up.
He had once dreamed of being one of them: clean-shaven, confident, powerful. That dream had died a thousand quiet deaths, each rejection letter another nail in its coffin.
He had been fired yesterday. Temp work, just like always. The manager didn't even have the decency to lie.
"You're not what we're looking for," she'd said, eyes flitting back to her monitor, already done with him. He hadn't asked why. He knew. He didn't look like someone you could trust with a future.
So he walked.
And kept walking.
Until his feet hurt and the numbness in his fingers was replaced with something more dangerous: clarity.
He had nothing. No one. No prospects. Even his so-called friends had vanished. Jeremy, his best friend from university—the same Jeremy who now strutted across magazine covers as the youngest CEO of a tech startup worth billions—hadn't answered his calls in over a year.
The last time they met, Jeremy had been all smiles and polished teeth, dressed in custom Italian tailoring.
"I'll help you out, bro," he'd said.
Help never came.
Even Elise, the only woman Evan had ever truly loved, had moved on. Married into a family of wealth and secrecy. She hadn't even told him.
He found out through a tagged photo on someone else's social media feed. It wasn't the marriage that hurt. It was her smile. The way she looked happier without him.
The world, it seemed, had decided Evan Kessler was an error to be erased.
And then came the man in the black suit.
It happened on the bridge.
Evan had stopped there, standing on the edge, looking down at the churning river below. He wasn't going to jump. He told himself that. He told himself he just needed to feel the wind, the height, the reminder that gravity still cared if he fell.
But the man appeared as if conjured by thought. Tall. Impeccably dressed. Face sharp like glass, eyes hidden behind dark lenses.
"Mr. Kessler," the man said, voice smoother than whiskey. "I believe it's time we spoke."
Evan blinked, startled. "Do I know you?"
"No. But I know you." The man pulled out a silver card and handed it over. Embossed on its surface was a single word in blood-red lettering: DAEMON.
Evan turned it over. Blank. "What is this? Some scam?"
"It's your legacy."
"I think you've got the wrong guy."
"You're Evan Michael Kessler. Born April 7th. Orphaned at age three. Raised in the foster system. Multiple addresses. Spotty employment. No criminal record, but plenty of misfortune. And yet... here you are. Standing at the edge."
Evan felt his spine tighten. "Who the hell are you?"
The man smiled thinly. "Your father left something behind. It's time you claimed it."
Before Evan could reply, a sleek black car pulled up beside them, doors unlocking with a whisper. The man gestured.
"Get in."
"Why would I?"
"Because if you don't, the next time you stand on this bridge... you won't just be thinking."
Silence.
Evan looked back at the city. The lights. The noise. The suffocating sameness of it all.
And then he stepped into the car.
The ride was silent. The city fell away, replaced by winding roads and towering pines. Rain gave way to mist. Evan didn't ask where they were going. The man didn't offer. Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time stretched in the silence.
They arrived at an estate carved into a mountain, hidden by trees and fog. Iron gates opened without a sound.
The mansion beyond looked like something from a dream—stone walls, turrets, glass and marble etched with ancient symbols. It didn't belong in this century.
Evan stepped out. The air smelled like snow and forgotten history.
Inside, the foyer stretched like a cathedral. A fire roared in a hearth the size of a car. Paintings lined the walls—faces he didn't recognize, all wearing the same eyes.
His eyes.
A woman in white appeared from nowhere. She looked like a statue come to life.
"Welcome home, Master Kessler," she said.
"I think there's been a mistake."
"No," said the man in the suit. "There hasn't."
He stepped forward and held out a small black case. Evan took it, hands shaking. Inside, nestled in velvet, was a device no larger than a coin. Sleek. Seamless. Pulsing with soft red light.
"This," the man said, "is the Daemon Protocol. A neural interface designed to synchronize with your cognitive network."
"Once activated, it will unlock the full extent of your inheritance: assets, access, knowledge. Power."
Evan stared. "Why me?"
"Because the world forgot you," the man replied. "But your father didn't."
The room was too quiet. The fire too warm. The device too alive in his hand.
Evan looked up.
"I don't know how to be rich."
The man's smile returned, thinner than ever.
"You'll learn. And when you do... you'll never be forgotten again."
Evan swallowed.
Then pressed the device to the base of his skull.
Pain.
Light.
And then a voice—not his—spoke inside his mind.
"Welcome, Executor. Daemon Protocol initiated."