CHAPTER 1 - "THE FORTH REJECTION"
Rain drummed steadily against the cracked window of Apartment 407, each drop sounding like another reminder that life rarely cared about dreams.
Arthur Knight barely noticed.
The pale glow of his aging laptop reflected in his tired eyes as he stared at the newest email sitting in his inbox. It had arrived only thirty seconds ago, yet somehow he already knew exactly what it said.
His hand hovered over the touchpad.
For a brief moment, hope whispered one last lie.
*Maybe this one is different.*
He clicked.
The message opened instantly.
**Dear Mr. Knight,**
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to review your manuscript. We truly appreciate the time, creativity, and effort invested in your work. Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we have decided not to move forward with publication at this time.
We wish you the very best in your future writing endeavors.
Arthur read the email twice.
Then a third time.
The words did not change.
Neither did the result.
Silence settled over the apartment.
Outside, thunder rolled across the midnight sky, rattling the thin glass of the only window in the room.
Arthur slowly leaned back in his chair. The old wooden frame creaked beneath his weight, sounding as exhausted as he felt.
A long breath escaped his lips.
"So..."
His voice was almost a whisper.
"That's four."
No anger.
No shouting.
No dramatic collapse.
Only quiet acceptance.
The manuscript lying beside his laptop looked almost mocking now. Nearly four hundred pages of revisions, sleepless nights, deleted chapters, rewritten endings, and countless cups of cheap coffee had all been reduced to a polite rejection email.
He closed the laptop.
The tiny apartment fell into darkness except for the flickering streetlight outside.
The room wasn't much bigger than a storage unit.
A narrow bed occupied one corner.
A secondhand desk stood beside the window.
The refrigerator buzzed louder than it cooled.
Stacks of handwritten notes and printed drafts covered almost every available surface.
To anyone else, it looked like clutter.
To Arthur, it was four years of refusing to give up.
He reached for the binder sitting at the edge of the desk.
A faded label read:
**Novel One**
He placed it beside another.
**Novel Two**
Then another.
**Novel Three**
Finally, he rested the newest binder on top.
**Novel Four**
He stared at the small pile for several seconds.
Four stories.
Four dreams.
Four rejections.
His shoulders trembled.
Then, unexpectedly...
He laughed.
A quiet chuckle escaped first.
Then another.
Within seconds, the tiny apartment echoed with exhausted laughter that bordered on madness.
"If failure were an Olympic sport," he muttered between breaths, "I'd have enough gold medals to retire."
The laughter faded as quickly as it came.
Silence returned.
Arthur rubbed both hands across his face before reaching for the worn leather wallet inside his desk drawer.
He opened it.
One twenty-dollar bill.
Three one-dollar bills.
A handful of coins.
That was everything.
He unlocked his phone.
His banking app loaded.
**Available Balance: $27.43**
Arthur smiled weakly.
"I've officially become a financial horror story."
Another notification appeared.
**Rent Reminder**
Three days overdue.
He swiped it away.
A second notification replaced it.
**Electricity Payment Past Due**
Dismissed.
Then another.
**Credit Card Minimum Payment Required**
Arthur locked the screen before another reminder could appear.
His stomach growled.
He opened the refrigerator.
One bottle of water.
Half a loaf of bread.
An almost-empty jar of peanut butter.
Dinner.
He spread the last spoonful onto two slices of bread with surprising care, as though preparing a meal for royalty instead of himself.
Every bite tasted like determination mixed with disappointment.
Back at his desk, his gaze drifted toward a framed photograph tucked beside his monitor.
A younger Arthur smiled confidently while holding a notebook against his chest.
His parents stood proudly beside him.
His mother had always believed he would become a published author.
His father had simply smiled and said, *"Dreams are expensive, son. Just make sure they're worth paying for."*
Arthur lowered the frame.
"They were worth it," he whispered.
"I just wasn't enough."
The words lingered in the quiet apartment.
Deep down, he didn't truly believe them.
Not completely.
But after four rejections, believing anything else required more strength than he had left.
He glanced at the clock hanging above the kitchen doorway.
3:58 a.m.
Sleep felt impossible.
Instead, he opened the folder containing his fifth novel.
The blank first page stared back at him.
His fingers rested on the keyboard.
Nothing happened.
Usually, ideas flooded his mind before he even finished typing the first sentence.
Tonight...
There was only emptiness.
Minutes passed.
The cursor blinked patiently.
Waiting.
Expecting.
Arthur finally closed the document.
"I can't."
Those two words hurt more than every rejection letter combined.
He stood, walked toward the window, and watched rainwater race down the glass.
Across the street, a bookstore remained dark.
He remembered standing outside that same shop years ago, imagining his name displayed proudly on its front shelf.
He had promised himself he would walk inside one day and sign copies of his own novel.
Now, even entering the store felt embarrassing.
His reflection stared back from the rain-soaked window.
Messy black hair.
Dark circles beneath tired eyes.
An old gray hoodie.
Someone who looked far older than twenty-eight.
"When did I start looking like defeat?" he asked quietly.
The room offered no answer.
Arthur returned to his desk one last time.
He picked up the fourth rejection letter and folded it carefully.
Instead of throwing it away, he placed it inside the binder beside the others.
Every rejection had earned its place.
He refused to erase any of them.
They were proof that he had tried.
The apartment clock ticked steadily.
4:03 a.m.
Arthur reached toward the laptop's power button.
"Tomorrow," he murmured.
"I'll start looking for a real job."
Warehouse.
Construction.
Delivery driver.
Anything.
Maybe stories belonged to people luckier than him.
He shut the laptop.
The screen turned black.
The apartment fell silent once more.
Then....
*Ding.*
Arthur froze.
The laptop had turned itself back on.
Its screen remained completely black.
No logo.
No loading symbol.
Only darkness.
A chill crept down his spine.
"I definitely turned you off."
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Every electronic device inside the apartment powered down simultaneously.
His phone vibrated violently on the desk.
The digital clock blinked.
**4:04 A.M.**
The black laptop screen rippled like the surface of still water.
Golden letters slowly emerged from the darkness.
Not typed.
Not animated.
They seemed to write themselves.
Arthur took one cautious step backward.
His heartbeat thundered louder than the rain outside.
The glowing message completed itself.
**CONGRATULATIONS, ARTHUR KNIGHT.**
**FOUR VERIFIED REJECTIONS DETECTED.**
A second line appeared beneath it.
**COMPATIBILITY CONFIRMED.**
Then a third.
**THE ASCENSION PROTOCOL IS NOW INITIATING...**
Arthur stared at the impossible words.
His breath caught.
Before he could move, the entire room was swallowed by a brilliant flash of gold.
And then...
Everything went dark...
