Chapter 9

• Gala’s fists clenched hard. His jaw locked tight.
• That name—Bellamie Rosaline—stung more than it should’ve. The image of his mother walking away when he was just ten played vividly behind his eyes. No matter how many times he asked what he had done wrong, no one could give him an answer. Because the only one who could… had left.
• And he’d been left to drown in the whispers—cursed child, abandoned, not even your own parents wanted you. The cruel names never stopped. He was left alone in that flat with just enough money to survive, somehow, until he finished elementary school. That was it.
• There were countless nights, where the emptiness clawed at him. Where he would’ve given anything just to feel her hand on his head again.
• And now this holographic girl was dragging those memories out of their dusty corner. Her words stirred every piece of him that still longed for answers.
• He remembered the man—tall, broad-shouldered—who used to take him to the park for cotton candy. His mom always scolded him afterward. Sometimes they swam together. Shopped for fruit in the city center. Rode a bike where he’d sit behind her, laughing into the wind.
• And then one day… it all stopped.
• The man disappeared.
• His mother said he was working, but he never came back. And eventually, she disappeared too.
• Dice continued her monologue, listing facts about his past—his schools, his hobbies, the few friends he barely had. She knew it all. Every detail. Every minute piece of his mundane, unlucky life.
• And when she began recounting his work history, Gala’s patience snapped.
• “Stop,” he said, his voice like ice.
• Dice fell silent instantly.
• “It’s all true,” he muttered, shaken. “You really are a sophisticated piece of tech.”
• “I was created for more than just collecting data.”
• Maybe it was lingering grief. Or maybe it was how vividly the thought of his mother had returned. Either way, Gala found himself asking a question he wasn’t sure he was ready to know the answer to.
• “If you’re so advanced… then tell me where my mother is.”
• With a flicker of blue light, an image appeared before him. It took Gala a moment to fully recognize it. The woman was thin—so much thinner than he remembered. But the eyes… the way they looked at something just out of frame…
• That was her.
• “That’s… Mom?” he breathed.
• The projection showed her sitting in the corner of a sparse room. Her face was gaunt, almost hollow. He blinked, rubbed his eyes hard to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.
• “Mom?” he said louder, stepping closer to the image. “Mom!”
• “Mrs. Bellamie cannot hear you, Master,” Dice replied gently.
• His chest felt tight. Breathing became harder, shallower. He stared at the image—his mother, the one who had left him, the one he still longed for and resented in equal measure.
• “Where is she?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
• He swiped a tear from under his nose.
• “North Metro,” Dice answered.
• Gala froze. Her words hit him like a thunderclap. His body stiffened, caught between disbelief and a sudden jolt of hope.
• “How?” he asked in a whisper. “What is she doing there?”
• "That information is inaccessible, Master. A system firewall prevents me from retrieving her purpose for being in North Metro."
• Gala slowly shook his head, still trying to wrap his mind around all of this. How could his mother be in North Metro? For what reason? And earlier… her face looked so weighed down, like she was carrying the weight of the world. What exactly had happened? Could it all be connected to why she left him?
• "And… Xavier? The man you claim is my father?" Gala couldn’t help but ask. “Where is he now?”
• "Master Xavier encrypted all access to his current location after giving me his final instruction: Find his son, Galaksi Haidar. Then complete the mission he left behind."
• “…What?”
• "Master Xavier had a critical assignment," Dice continued. "He couldn’t finish it—his reasons were never shared—but what matters now is that we, the dice and I, have officially been transferred to a new owner."
• "I don’t understand what any of that means."
• Dice nodded, her expression patient, as though she'd expected his confusion.
• "The dice was designed using the most advanced technology and locked so that only Master Xavier Horratio could authorize a change in ownership."
• Gala’s eyes instinctively flicked toward the small black object. It looked so ordinary, like a decorative cube. Nothing about it hinted at the chaos it had just brought into his life.
• “Only Master Xavier had the authority to transfer our ownership. And only to his rightful descendant: you, Master.”
• "For what purpose?" Gala asked, a bit too quickly.
• "To destroy Metro. All of it. And to rebuild a new system—one where every existing order answers to a single command: the will of Dice’s master. You."
• ***
• “Could you not just show up whenever you want?” Gala hissed under his breath, darting his eyes left and right as he carried a tray of dirty dishes toward the kitchen. “People can see you, you know!”
• Dice tilted her head, calmly, her voice soft but unbothered. “No one can see me unless you introduce me to someone. You control who sees me.”
• Gala didn’t believe a word of it. “That can’t be right. You’re a hologram—you look real enough!”
• Dice simply nodded.
• “It’s so weird. How are you even helping me?” He gave her a once-over. “You’re like a projection. You’re not even solid.”
• “How many times must I say it?” she replied coolly. “I was built with the most advanced technology known to man.”
• Gala groaned, palming his forehead.
• He made his way down the narrow hallway, the same one where he’d first found the strange glowing object. After his shift, he was heading straight to Mr. Jian’s place. The last thing he wanted was to let down the one person who’d been genuinely kind to him these past few months.
• “Is your name actually that weird?”
• “Yes, Master?”
• “Your name. Dice. It’s so strange,” Gala muttered as he pushed his bicycle along the narrow street. To any outsider, he probably looked like someone deep in conversation with his girlfriend—the guy walking his bike, the girl strolling beside him. But in this case? The girl was a hologram.
• Utterly ridiculous.
• “Database Internal Central Energy. That’s what my name stands for, Master.”
• Gala clicked his tongue. “Still weird.”
• Dice didn’t respond.
• “Go back. I must work.”
• “I won’t be a bother, Master.”
• But Gala wasn’t about to risk getting caught talking to himself again. Earlier, while rinsing the last of the greasy cooking tools at the end of his shift, Luke had caught sight of him and shot him a snide look, practically sneering when he asked, “Who you talking to, Gala? Starting to crack, huh?”
• Gala had tuned it out, as always. He was a professional at ignoring Luke. The guy’s words echoed in his ears like background noise—there, but never worth absorbing.
• “Back inside, Dice,” he ordered firmly. It still felt a bit absurd to call the holographic girl Dice, but what else was he supposed to call her? That really was her name—an acronym, apparently.
• In an instant, Dice vanished. The cube—her “home”—lost its glow, returning to a simple black shape with vibrant dots on each face. It had once been the Gala’s fist, but now it shifted, reshaping itself into something else entirely. Gala had asked her to make it into a pendant so he could wear it around his neck, tucked beneath the collar of his shirt. Something discreet. Something he could keep close and hidden.
• The night had fallen thick and heavy again as Gala made his way toward Mr. Jian’s house. The stink of rotting trash in the narrow alleyways clung to the air, sharp and suffocating. But Gala didn’t flinch. He just wanted to finish his chores and crawl into bed.
• Today had drained every ounce of energy he had.
• Especially now, with the ghosts of his mother and father lingering in his thoughts.