"Shed! Shed!!" Alaric's voice tore through the heavy night air, raw and desperate. He gripped his friend's shoulders, violently shaking him as if he could rattle the life back into his limp body. "Open your eyes! Don't you dare leave me like this!"
The only response was the distant, wailing approach of sirens. Within minutes, the intersection was flooded with the sterile, flashing blue and red of an ambulance. Paramedics swarmed the pavement, their voices clinical and urgent, as they loaded Shed's broken form into the back. Alaric stood frozen, his hands stained with his best friend's blood, watching the doors slam shut. The silence that followed was louder than the sirens.
The following morning, the police station smelled of stale coffee and damp paper. Alaric sat on a plastic chair, his eyes bloodshot and dark with exhaustion. He had spent the night in the hospital waiting room, pacing until his shoes felt thin.
"Tell us again, Alaric," the officer said, tapping a pen against a clipboard. "You saw the driver?"
"I saw him perfectly," Alaric said, his voice trembling with a mixture of grief and rage. "He was wearing a suit. He looked at me. He looked at Shed. And then he just... he drove off like we were nothing."
Suddenly, the heavy glass doors of the station swung open. A middle-aged man, his face pale and his eyes darting toward the floor, stumbled toward the front desk.
"I'm here to confess," the man whispered, his voice shaking so hard it was barely audible. "Yesterday night... I ran over someone and left in fear. I couldn't live with the guilt."
Alaric bolted upright, his chair screeching against the tile. He marched over to the stranger, staring into his face. This man was wearing a tattered jacket; his skin was weathered, his hands calloused.
"No," Alaric told the police, his voice ringing with certainty. "This isn't him. I saw the man who hit my friend. This isn't the person!"
The stranger didn't look up. He couldn't. Just an hour ago, Ethan's men had shown him a photo of his daughter walking to school and his wife at the market. *"Take the fall,"* they had told him, *"or you won't have a family to go home to."*
Across the city, in the towering glass fortress of the KR Group, the news reached the penthouse office.
"What do you mean he couldn't defend the story?" Ethan roared, his face turning a sickly shade of purple. He grabbed a heavy crystal decanter from his desk and hurled it against the floor, where it shattered into a thousand glittering shards.
"The witness is persistent, sir," his assistant stammered, backing toward the door. "The boy is an academy athlete. He's making a scene at the station. The police are requesting your presence for questioning since your car was reported stolen last night."
"Get out!" Ethan screamed. "Out!"
As the door clicked shut, Ethan collapsed into his leather chair, his breath coming in ragged, panicked hitches. The crown he had bought felt like it was made of lead. He grabbed a gold lighter and flicked the flame to life, holding it to the corner of the black card Lara had given him. As the paper curled and blackened, the smoke began to swirl, thick and silver, teleporting him directly into Lara's living room.
Lara was casually sipping tea when the air in the center of her room ripped open and Ethan stumbled out.
"It's you again," she said, walking up to him and sitting down on the edge of her velvet sofa. "It must be good to be rich, summoning me again after just one day. Maybe I didn't charge you enough yesterday."
"This time, it's a simple job," Ethan panted, his eyes wild. "But it's urgent. The boy—he saw me. You need to make him forget."
Lara sighed, looking bored. "What a shame. I am thinking of going on a break for ten years. An old geezer has been disturbing me lately, lecturing me about 'scales.' So, I am rejecting your offer."
"I will pay double what I gave you yesterday!" Ethan blurted out.
Lara paused. The bored expression vanished, replaced by a glint of genuine interest as she sat back down. "I guess I will rest *after* doing the job. What is that?" she asked in sudden excitement.
### ****Uri Garam Hospital****
Alaric pushed open the door to Room 402 to visit his friend. He paused, his heart skipping a beat when he saw the woman from the street standing by Shed's bed.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice defensive.
"You again?" Lara said, her eyes tracing the contours of the sterile room. "It seems we're deeply connected by fate. The soccer ball yesterday night... remember?"
"But how do you know that I'm here?" Alaric asked, stepping closer.
Lara stood up, her presence suddenly heavy. "I am here to tweak your memory a bit. Look straight at me."
She snapped her fingers. Alaric's body went rigid as he stared at her absentmindedly, his mind falling into a deep, hollow focus on her golden pupils. "About last night..." Lara began.
Suddenly, a vision erupted before her. She saw Alaric—not as a failure, but as a giant. She saw him rich, famous, and showered in gold. Confusion hit her like a physical blow. She hadn't seen this in him before; she had seen it in Shed.
"Have there been a twist of fate?" she whispered to herself. "No way... their fates have been switched."
In that instant, a searing pain struck Lara's heart. She clutched her chest and began to stagger. "What is this?" she cried out in pain. The world became a blur, spinning violently in her sight.
She fell to her knees, losing her balance completely. Alaric, jolted from his trance, immediately caught her as she fell into his arms. Her eyes were half-closed, and a strange, ethereal blue energy began evaporating from her skin. With a sound like a silken banner snapping, her nine snow-white tails suddenly popped out, fanning across the hospital floor.
Alaric stared in absolute awe and terror, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What... what are you?"