Chapter 4: The First Crack

The air in Room 303 had turned toxic. It was a low-grade, psychological poison that seeped into everything. Leo, once arrogantly carefree, was now a bundle of frayed nerves. He jumped at the slightest sound, his eyes were perpetually bloodshot, and he mainlined energy drinks with a desperate fervor. The conditioning had been a resounding success; Leo’s brain was now a warzone where the concepts of ‘alarm’ and ‘sleep’ were locked in a brutal, losing battle.

Ethan watched him, a dispassionate observer behind a veil of calm. Each of Leo’s paranoid glances, each muttered curse about being tired, was a data point confirming his victory.

The side-quest from the System pulsed at the edge of his vision, a constant, patient reminder.

[Side-Quest: Academic Inconvenience] [Objective: Leverage the target’s current state to cause him to miss a minor academic deadline.] [Time Limit: 19 hours remaining.]

Ethan could have settled for the Macroeconomics problem set. It would have been easy. But ‘easy’ no longer satisfied the cold, hungry thing that was growing inside him. He wanted more. He wanted a failure with an audience.

Using [Observation] Level 1, he scanned the digital calendar synced to Leo’s laptop. And there it was, gleaming like a jewel. Business Communications 101: Midterm Presentation. Tuesday, 9:30 a.m. A group project, worth thirty percent of his final grade. Perfect.

The true attack would begin now.

For the next two nights, Ethan moved from conditioning to pure psychological warfare. The established 5:00 a.m. routine was shattered. He used the Untraceable Audio Emitter to introduce chaos. The first night, the death metal riff played on a two-minute loop at 3:14 a.m. Leo shot up in bed, wild-eyed, before collapsing back into a sweaty, fitful sleep.

The second night, the night before the presentation, Ethan was even more cruel. He played only the foghorn blast, once, at 1:47 a.m. Then again at 2:23 a.m. Then twice in quick succession at 4:11 a.m. They were auditory landmines planted in the dark, designed to obliterate any remaining connection between the sounds and the act of waking.

“I swear to God I’m hearing things,” Leo snarled into his phone that evening, pacing his side of the room. “It’s this damn room. It’s making me crazy.”

Ethan looked up from his book, his face a mask of mild concern. “Are you feeling okay, Leo? You seem really on edge. The counseling center has walk-in hours, you know.”

Leo shot him a venomous glare. “Screw you, Hayes.” But the seed was planted. Even Leo was starting to believe the problem was internal, a failing of his own mind, not an external attack.

That night, Leo practically fell into bed, muttering about his presentation. He meticulously set his ten alarms, the familiar cacophony his last remaining security blanket. He was asleep in moments.

Ethan remained awake, a sentinel in the darkness. The blue glow of the System’s interface was his only companion. He watched the digital clock on his laptop.

5:59 a.m.

The room was utterly silent, save for Leo’s ragged breathing.

6:00 a.m.

Nothing. Leo’s phone, his trusted ten-alarm beast, remained dark and silent on the nightstand.

Ethan’s finger hovered over a control panel on his System screen. He selected a single sound file from the ten he had recorded. It was the eighth in the sequence, a soft, three-note synthesized chime that was normally buried beneath the louder, more obnoxious noises. It was the alarm his conditioning had rendered most impotent.

He activated the emitter.

The gentle chime echoed softly from under Leo’s desk. Ding-ding-ding. It was barely audible.

Leo stirred, a faint frown creasing his brow in his sleep. His brain, now thoroughly rewired by Pavlov’s Ruin, registered the sound and immediately dismissed it as meaningless, phantom noise. He rolled over, pulling his blanket tighter.

And that was it.

Ethan sat back, a profound, godlike sense of control washing over him. He had not just disabled his target’s weapon; he had turned the target’s own mind against him. He watched the minutes tick by. 7:00 a.m. 8:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m. The presentation would have started thirty minutes ago.

At 10:17 a.m., Leo’s eyes finally fluttered open. He blinked at the bright morning light streaming through the window, a lazy, satisfied groan escaping his lips. It was the groan of someone who believed they’d had a fantastic, deep sleep. He stretched, then his eyes fell on his phone. He squinted at the time.

The color drained from his face.

“No,” he whispered. The word was a puff of disbelief. He snatched the phone, his hands trembling. “No. No, no, no!”

He scrambled through the alarm settings. They were all there, all active, set for 6:00 a.m. It didn’t make sense. It was impossible. He hadn’t heard a thing. The dawning horror gave way to pure, undiluted panic. His presentation. His grade.

His head snapped up, and his wild, terrified eyes locked onto Ethan, who was sitting at his desk, calmly highlighting a passage in a textbook.

In that instant, Leo’s confusion and fear needed a target. It coalesced into pure rage.

“YOU!” The roar was primal, tearing from his throat. “You did this! You son of a bitch, I don’t know how, but you did this!”

He launched himself out of bed and stormed across the room, his face a mask of fury. He grabbed the front of Ethan’s shirt, hauling him from his chair. “You sabotaged me! You’re trying to make me fail!”

Ethan put on the face he’d been practicing. Wide-eyed shock. A tremor of fear. “Leo, what are you talking about? Let go of me!”

“Don’t play dumb!” Leo screamed, shaking him. “My alarm didn’t go off! You did something!”

The door to their room burst open. Chloe Jenkins stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with alarm, drawn by the screaming.

The scene that greeted her was damning. She saw Leo, the known problem-child, physically assaulting his roommate, his face contorted with rage, spittle flying from his lips as he yelled accusations that sounded utterly insane. And she saw Ethan, the quiet, studious one, held captive, looking terrified and bewildered.

“Leo, let him go! Right now!” Chloe’s voice cut through the air, sharp and authoritative.

Leo, startled, shoved Ethan away. Ethan stumbled backward, catching himself on his desk, making sure to look appropriately shaken.

“He made me miss my midterm!” Leo yelled at Chloe, his voice cracking with desperation. “He’s been messing with me all week, I know he has!”

Chloe took a step into the room, placing herself between them. Her focus was entirely on Leo. “Leo, you need to calm down. You overslept. It happens.”

“It doesn’t just happen!” he raged. “My alarms are set! He did something!”

Ethan chose his moment perfectly. He straightened his shirt, his voice trembling slightly. “Chloe… I’m scared. He’s been like this for days. Not sleeping, muttering to himself, blaming me for everything. He just woke up and… and attacked me.” He looked at Leo with beautifully feigned pity. “I think he’s having some kind of breakdown.”

Chloe’s expression solidified. The narrative was set in stone. She saw a privileged kid who couldn’t handle the pressure, who missed a deadline and was having a violent tantrum, inventing a conspiracy theory to avoid taking responsibility.

“Leo,” she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. “We’re going to walk over to your professor’s office right now. And then, you and I are going to have a serious talk about the student code of conduct and the resources at the counseling center.”

Defeated, the fight drained out of Leo. He looked from Chloe’s stern face to Ethan’s calm, concerned one, and saw he had already lost. He was the crazy one. He was the villain. His public humiliation was complete.

As Chloe escorted a fuming, broken Leo out of the room, Ethan sank back into his chair. The mask of the victim fell away, replaced by the cold, triumphant smile of the victor. A soft chime, audible only to him, resonated in his mind.

[Side-Quest Complete: Academic Inconvenience] [Reward: 15 Karmic Points received.] [Skill [Observation] has been upgraded to Level 2. You can now perceive emotional states and short-term intentions.]

[Main Mission ‘The First Lesson’ Progress: 100%] [Objective Complete.] [Calculating Reward…]

This feeling, this cold, sharp thrill, was better than any grade, better than any praise. This was true power. He had not only broken his enemy; he had made his enemy the architect of his own destruction. And his resolve, once focused purely on survival, now solidified into something far grander. This wasn’t just about a missed midterm. This was about tearing down an entire world.