After the auction was settled, Kael received the remainder of the money through an Association-secured transfer to his bank account.
The number did not look real.
Even after taxes, handling fees, auction fees, and the Association's cut took nearly ten percent from the total, the amount remaining was still more money than Kael had ever seen attached to his name. His old account, the one that had spent years being dragged between hospital bills, rent, groceries, and late notices, now held a number large enough to make him stare at the screen longer than was reasonable.
Money had always been something that left.
Now it sat there, heavy and strange, as if waiting for him to understand that his life had changed.
