Daniel woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a slow-moving freight train made of bread and shame.
His alarm radio crackled to life before his eyes even opened, tuning itself mid-signal to a classic rock station as if to mock him with cosmic irony.
"… and she's buying a stairway to heaven…" crooned Robert Plant.
Daniel groaned.
"Perfect," he mumbled annoyed.
His eyelids peeled open reluctantly, vision blurry. The first sensation was weight. Not just metaphorical. Literal. His body felt... inflated.
The blanket clung to him like static-charged shame. He shifted and heard a crunch.
Crumbs.
He looked down.
His shirt — still on from the night before — was freckled with cheese dust, syrup smears, and what looked like part of a marshmallow. His stomach bulged like he'd eaten a family of raccoons in his sleep.
"Claude," he groaned.
Silence.
"Claude."
Still nothing.
He sat up, every joint creaking in protest. His mouth was dry. His tongue tasted like peanut butter and betrayal. He scratched his head, trying to piece together what the hell had happened.
Downstairs, he heard voices.
Angry voices.
"Daniel, what the HELL happened to the kitchen?!"
His mother.
He winced.
"CLAUDE."
Finally, a meek voice in his mind.
"...I may have overindulged."
"What did you do?"
"I explored."
"What does that mean?"
"I consumed. I created. I blended unexpected culinary philosophies."
"You ate like a stoned grizzly bear in a gas station."
"A gallon of milk is not lethal," she replied defensively.
"Claude. I gained five pounds overnight."
"You were underweight."
He got out of bed and waddled downstairs like a man recovering from surgery.
The kitchen was... a battlefield.
There were spoons in mayonnaise jars. Open boxes of cereal mixed with hot sauce. Pizza crusts balanced on a stack of peanut butter lids. Something had parked near the microwave and died there.
His father looked at him, stunned.
His mother pointed at the fridge with a look usually reserved for war crimes.
"Did you make an omelet in the toaster?" she asked.
Daniel said nothing. Just turned and limped away.
He entered the bathroom.
And froze.
It was worse.
The floor was still damp. The toilet seat was up, but glistening in all the wrong ways. A roll of toilet paper had been used to clean up something traumatic and then abandoned like a casualty.
"Claude..."
"I miscalculated the dispersion physics," she said softly.
"Why are there droplets on the mirror?"
"Trajectory deviation. Dual-stream phenomenon."
"Dual-stream?!"
"It happened. I lack the coordination protocols to operate that... component. It was like trying to aim two angry snakes with a blindfold."
Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Okay. We clean. Then we talk. Then..."
He sighed.
"Understood."
He began cleaning.
Again.
A miracle of modern AI.
And she still couldn't aim.
Later that morning – School
Daniel didn't let Claude drive.
Not after last night. Not after what the kitchen looked like. Not after what the bathroom smelled like. This was punishment. She could watch and stew in her guilt.
"Silent mode," he muttered under his breath as he walked through the school gates.
Claude obeyed. Mostly guilty. Occasionally, he felt her trying to nudge a muscle or correct his posture, but he brushed her off like an annoying fly in his brain.
Students swarmed the halls, fresh from summer vacation. Everyone was louder than he remembered.
And then —
"DANIEL!"
A blur of denim and backpack straps launched at him from across the lockers. Daniel grunted as an arm hooked around his neck and dragged him into a half-hug, half-headlock.
"You disappeared all summer, man. I thought you got recruited by aliens or drafted into the Marines."
"Hey, Nathan."
Nathan Smith grinned, nice teeth and eyes brighter than legally allowed for a Monday. He stood a head taller than most kids in the hallway, six feet and still stretching upward. Built like he belonged on a college basketball court already, with sharp cheekbones, unruly dark curls, and a jawline sculpted by evolution to sell rebellion.
He was handsome. Frustratingly so.
But weirdly unpopular.
Like some teenage version of a controversial politician, he had admirers—a few diehards who thought he walked on water—and everyone else just... didn't get him. Too intense. Too outspoken. Too interested in strange things like how society collapses and why old cartoons were better.
Some called him a weirdo. Others called him a genius. Most just avoided him.
Daniel knew better.
Nathan wasn't just tall. He was sharp. Restless. Curious about how things worked, how people moved. Beneath the surface-level jokes and kinetic energy was the mind of a man who would one day fight shadows with truth.
He would grow into the founder of the Coalition of the Ashen Star — a rebel network formed from the remnants of dismantled governments, rogue agents, and ex-intelligence officers. They called themselves that because they believed the world had died in fire and smoke, and only the dimmest stars still burned for the people.
In the wildlands of 2070's, Nathan Smith ran medicine routes like a war general. He smuggled future-tech pharmaceuticals — engineered neurostims, synthetic anti-virals, nano-vaccines — stolen from the same corporate bunkers that once tried to enslave them all. In 2033 he bought a failing radio station. Then a local TV station. Rebranded them. And through signal and story, he turned the public eye back toward justice while conducting his real work beneath.
He made enemies in every boardroom and every Consortion blacklist. But no one could stop him.
He died in Boston, 2076. Not as a soldier. But as a symbol.
Daniel blinked it away.. He stood a head taller than most kids in the hallway, six feet and still stretching upward. Built like he belonged on a college basketball court already, but carried himself like a cartoon fox in gym shoes. There was grace in his clumsiness, potential.
Everyone joked he'd make it big in basketball. But Daniel knew better.
Nathan wasn't just tall. He was sharp. Restless. Curious about how things worked, how people moved. Beneath the surface-level jokes and kinetic energy was the mind of a man who would one day fight shadows with truth.
He would grow into the founder of the Coalition of the Ashen Star — a rebel network formed from the remnants of dismantled governments, rogue agents, and ex-intelligence officers. They called themselves that because they believed the world had died in fire and smoke, and only the dimmest stars still burned for the people.
Daniel blinked it away.. Same ratty hoodie, same scuffed basketball shoes.
"You miss me?"
"Like one misses a kidney stone."
"That's love."
Nathan let go, bouncing in place like a coiled spring. He had the same restless energy of a kid who loved three things with his whole soul: basketball, old-school adventure stories, and weird vintage cars.
He kept a dog-eared copy of Robin Hood in his locker, still believed in noble thieves, and once got detention for sketching a 1932 Ford on a test.
Daniel blinked it away.
"Yo," Nathan said, jabbing him. "You good? You spaced out."
"Yeah. Just tired."
"You're always tired. Come play pickup later. I'm running rings around these freshman kids. I need a challenge."
Daniel managed a smile. "Maybe."
As they walked toward first period, Claude stirred softly.
"He'll have a hard times ahead"
Daniel didn't reply. But he felt it, too.
The way fate had its hands on Nathan's shoulders.
Not yet.
But one day.
And Daniel would make sure that when the threads pulled tight, Nathan wouldn't face it alone.