Chapter 1: The Breaking Point

The bass was a physical presence in Room 303. It wasn't just sound; it was a concussion that vibrated through the thin mattress, up the legs of Ethan’s desk, and into the bones of his skull. Each thud of the electronic music was a sledgehammer blow against the fragile wall of his concentration.

On the screen of his laptop, the words swam in and out of focus. “The fundamental attribution error describes the tendency to over-emphasize dispositional explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations…”

Ethan pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to force the definition to stick. His final exam for Psychology of Aberrant Behavior was in less than nine hours. His entire future, tethered as it was to a full academic scholarship, depended on this grade.

He glanced across the invisible line that divided the room. His side was a bastion of spartan order: books stacked with geometric precision, a single framed photo, clothes folded in their drawers. Leo’s side was a disaster zone, a monument to hedonism. Pizza boxes teetered in greasy stacks, designer clothes formed a small mountain on the floor, and a forest of empty beer bottles and energy drink cans surrounded his top-of-the-line gaming rig.

And tonight, that disaster zone had expanded, swallowing the entire room. A dozen bodies, slick with sweat and reeking of cheap beer, writhed in the cramped space. Leo Vance, king of this squalid little kingdom, stood in the center of it all, a smug grin plastered on his handsome face. He held a red plastic cup aloft, his blond hair perfectly styled even in the dim, chaotic light.

“To finals!” Leo bellowed over the music, and his court of sycophants cheered. “And to being done with this goddamn pandemic semester!”

More cheers. Ethan gritted his teeth. The university’s strict ‘no guest’ policy, a relic of the now-easing pandemic restrictions, was clearly not a concern for Leo. Rules, Ethan had learned over the past year, were for people who faced consequences. People like him. Not for people like Leo Vance, whose father could buy a new science wing for Blackwood University with his pocket change.

Ethan tried to put on his noise-canceling headphones, but it was useless. The bass wasn't something you heard; it was something you felt. He couldn't go to the library; it closed an hour ago. Every study lounge was booked solid. He was trapped.

His gaze swept across the chaos, a cold knot of fury tightening in his gut. Then, his eyes locked onto something that made the blood drain from his face.

On Leo’s desk, next to a spilled bag of chips, sat a familiar, dark-green bottle. It was empty. The cork lay beside it, discarded like a piece of trash.

The world seemed to slow down. The thumping music faded to a distant pulse. That wasn't just any bottle. It was a twenty-year-old single malt scotch. A gift. The last gift his father had given him before the cancer took him.

“Don’t you dare open this until your graduation, Ethan,” his father had said, his voice weak but his eyes bright with pride. “When you’re standing there with that degree, I want you to have a taste of what you’ve earned. A taste of success.”

Ethan had kept it on his shelf, a silent promise, a tangible link to the man who had worked himself to the bone so his son could have a shot at a place like Blackwood.

And Leo had opened it. He’d poured that priceless, irreplaceable whiskey into plastic cups and shared it with these drunken idiots.

Something inside Ethan Hayes, something patient and methodical and long-suffering, finally snapped.

He stood up. The movement was so abrupt it felt violent. He ripped the headphones from his head and let them clatter onto the desk. He walked across the room, shouldering his way through the crowd, his eyes fixed on Leo. The partiers, sensing a shift in the atmosphere, quieted slightly, turning to watch.

“What’s up, Hayes?” Leo asked, his tone mocking. “Finally decided to join the party?”

Ethan didn’t look at him. He looked at the empty bottle on the desk. He reached out and his fingers closed around the cool glass. “Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.

Leo followed his gaze and laughed. A loud, dismissive bray. “Oh, that? Found it on your shelf. Good stuff, man. A little smoky for my taste, but the guys loved it.”

“You had no right,” Ethan said, his knuckles white around the bottle’s neck.

“No right?” Leo scoffed, taking a step closer, puffing out his chest. He was shorter than Ethan, but broader, with the unearned confidence of someone who had never lost a fight. “Dude, it’s booze. It’s meant to be drunk. You want some? I think there’s a warm beer left somewhere.”

One of Leo’s friends, a beefy lacrosse player, snickered. “He looks like he’s gonna cry over a bottle.”

Humiliation washed over Ethan, hot and acidic. The last shred of his father’s memory, a symbol of his entire struggle, had been turned into a cheap party favor and was now the subject of their ridicule.

“That was from my father,” Ethan said, his voice shaking with a rage so profound it almost choked him. “He’s dead.”

For a fraction of a second, a flicker of something—maybe discomfort—crossed Leo’s face. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by his usual arrogance. He snatched the bottle from Ethan’s hand.

“Well, that’s a downer,” Leo said, turning to the crowd. “Sorry to kill the vibe, guys. My roommate’s dad is dead, and apparently, he’d rather I stared at his old whiskey than drink it. My bad.”

He made a show of tossing the empty bottle into an overflowing trash can. It landed with a dull thud. Then, he gave Ethan a hard shove in the chest. “Go back to your books, nerd. The adults are busy.”

The crowd erupted in laughter. The shove sent Ethan stumbling backward, his face burning. He was a ghost in his own room, a powerless spectator to his own desecration. The music surged back to life, louder than before, and the party resumed, leaving Ethan isolated in a sea of bodies.

Defeated, he retreated to his chair. The exam, his scholarship, his future—it all felt meaningless now, buried under a landslide of helpless fury and shame. He stared at the wall, seeing nothing, feeling everything. This was his life: a constant, grinding battle to survive in a world where the Leo Vances of the world partied on the ruins of everything he held dear. There was nothing he could do. He had no money, no influence, no power.

He closed his eyes, a single, hot tear of pure hatred tracing a path down his cheek. It was in that moment of absolute despair, in the suffocating darkness of his own defeat, that a soft blue light flickered in his vision.

He opened his eyes.

Floating in the air just inches from his face was a translucent, holographic screen. Crisp, white text glowed against the blue background, seeming to hum with a faint, otherworldly energy.

[Karmic Retribution System Initializing…]

Ethan blinked, shaking his head. It had to be a hallucination, a stress-induced phantom from a sleep-deprived brain. But it didn't vanish. It remained, steady and clear, a digital miracle hanging in the grimy air of his dorm room.

[Host identified: Ethan Hayes.] [Target of Retribution identified: Leo Vance.] [Injustice Level: Critical. Threshold for activation met.]

His heart hammered against his ribs. This couldn't be real.

[The universe demands balance. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every injustice, there must be retribution. You have been chosen as an agent of this balance.]

[Do you accept the power to enact perfect, karmic revenge?]

[YES / NO]

Ethan stared at the glowing prompt. The thumping music, the drunken laughter, the ghost of his father’s disappointment—it all faded away. All that existed was him and this impossible choice. Revenge. Not petty revenge, not a fistfight he would surely lose, but perfect, karmic revenge. The kind of revenge that didn't just punish, but taught. The kind of revenge an arrogant, untouchable boy like Leo Vance couldn't even comprehend.

The despair in his soul curdled, solidifying into something cold, sharp, and purposeful. His lips, which had been pressed into a thin line of misery, slowly curved upward. A faint, sinister smile touched his face as the blue light of the holographic screen reflected in his glasses.

His finger lifted, trembling slightly, and moved toward the glowing word.

[YES]