The next morning, Fred woke up on the cold tiled floor of Dina's room.
His body ached.
His head spun.
His soul... felt hollow.
The cheap curtain barely blocked out the cruel morning sun. Dina was already gone, probably to beg her "sponsor" for rent money, or maybe... just maybe, to escape this drowning city for a few hours.
Fred rubbed his tired face.
He was 19 years old, but felt 50.
His phone buzzed.
A new text on the burner:
> "5PM. Red Hotel. Room 308. Package delivery."
Another job.
Another step into the darkness.
---
In a luxurious corner of town, at the Sapphire Suites Hotel, a very different kind of auction was happening.
It wasn't art being sold.
It wasn't stocks.
It was girls.
Campus beauties, lined up like merchandise:
Skimpy dresses.
Forced smiles.
Dead eyes.
Old politicians.
Fat businessmen.
Corrupt pastors pretending to "pray" before picking.
The girls' faces said everything.
Some were 19.
Some were 20.
All had one thing in common: desperation.
Lina sat at the far end of the velvet couch, wearing a tight gold dress that wasn't her choice, clutching a glass of champagne she didn't want.
Her mother's text from that morning still burned her mind:
> "Tonight you'll finally understand how the world works."
Lina smiled bitterly as a man old enough to be her grandfather winked at her.
This wasn't life.
This was selling your soul by the gram.
---
Fred arrived at Red Hotel just before sunset.
It was a sleazy, crumbling place with peeling walls and the smell of rotten cigars in the air.
Room 308.
He knocked.
A woman answered.
She looked about 25, wearing only a bathrobe, cigarette dangling from her lips, mascara smudged under her red eyes.
The room behind her was a mess:
Empty beer bottles.
Crushed pill packets.
A belt lying suspiciously next to the bed.
> "You're the boy?" she rasped.
Fred nodded, swallowing the acid rising in his throat.
She snatched the envelope from his hands, tossing it onto a pile of cash on the table.
> "Tell Victor I'll have the other half by tomorrow," she muttered before slamming the door.
Fred stood there for a long moment, staring at the cracked number plate of the room door: "308", peeling and bent like the lives inside.
He turned and left.
Another piece of his humanity left behind.
---
Back on campus, posters for the upcoming Prom Night were plastered everywhere.
Themes: "Luxury Beyond Dreams."
Location: Presidential Ballroom, Silver Heights Hotel.
Entry Fee: $200 per head.
For poor students like Fred, the event was a cruel joke.
He overheard girls chattering:
> "I'm wearing a Vera Wang dress!"
"I hired a Ferrari for prom night!"
"I hope my date books a suite for after the party, hehe."
Fred didn't even have $2 to his name.
Let alone $200.
He kept his head down, walked faster, heart aching.
--
Later that evening, as Fred sat alone under the broken street lamp outside Block F, a stranger approached.
A girl.
She wore a loose hoodie and baggy jeans.
Her hair was a messy bun.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
Just raw, awkward energy.
> "You dropped this," she said, handing him a small notebook he hadn't even realized had fallen.
Fred looked up, stunned.
Her face was soft.
Brown skin glowing under the dim light.
Wide, worried eyes.
A scar just above her left eyebrow, like a small secret she didn't hide.
> "Thanks," Fred mumbled.
She smiled shyly and walked away before he could even ask her name.
For the first time in days, Fred felt something real.
Tiny.
Fragile.
Human.
He clutched the notebook tighter against his chest like it was a lifeline.
---
That night, Fred met Victor again behind the abandoned Old Drama Theatre.
The place was falling apart:
Smashed windows.
Graffiti curses on the walls.
Rats scurrying over broken chairs.
Victor didn't smile this time.
He handed Fred a small pistol wrapped in an old rag.
> "Just in case," he said.
Fred stared at the cold metal.
His reflection stared back at him in the steel.
But he didn't recognize that boy anymore.
---
In his hostel room, Fred sat alone under the cracked ceiling.
The pistol on the table.
The burner phone buzzing with new tasks.
The notebook — the one the mystery girl gave back to him — sitting unopened beside him.
His world had changed.
His innocence was dead.
And somewhere, deep inside, Fred made a silent promise:
"I'll endure it all. Every pain. Every betrayal. Every monster. Until the day the world finally notices me."
And maybe then...
Maybe then he'd get to be human again.
---