The Ghost in the Wire
He doesn’t play cards.
No, not like the rest of them—who bluff with bloodstained hands and smile behind masks of betrayal. He doesn’t deal hands, nor does he fold. Instead, he moves like a silent grandmaster—every decision studied, calculated, dissected a hundred times over. This isn’t a game of chance. This is war by wires, and the board is rigged.
They thought he was naive once.
They mistook his kindness for weakness, his silence for submission. Before all this—before the whispers, the betrayals, the silent executions—he was pure. A white heart. He gave what he had to anyone in need. He stood for truth, for justice, and for loyalty, even when the winds blew the other way. His pockets? Always turned inside out for others. His hands? Always extended.
And then, they branded him.
Fake. Fraud. A ghost hiding behind illusion.
They burned his name before the world. They spit their venom and smeared his image in every hall. But he didn’t fight back—not then. He let them accuse. He let them lie. He let them think they won.
Why?
Because he knew… the real game had just begun.
See, before their war, there was already a war inside him. The damage was done long ago. The scars were stitched beneath his skin. When he rose to answer them, it wasn’t the start—it was the retaliation.
He whispered to the devils:
“Everything you build, every illusion you cast, you’ll fold it, wrap it, and shove it where the sun never shines.”
And then, he began his moves.
Silent. Precise. Cold.
Not all moves were clean. He caused damage. Yes, even to those he once loved. Collateral in a war they started and he refused to lose. He hates those choices. He revisits them every night in silence. But when he weighs the pain he caused against the fire they planned to unleash—he knows. What he did was still the lesser evil.
The Ghost lives in shadow now.
He speaks to no one. Trusts no one. He watches from the wire, moving through circuits and code, between screens and silence. His mission is not fame. It is not vengeance.
It is security. For them all. Even for the ones who damned him.
Will he be remembered? No.
Will he be forgiven? Never.
Will he be understood? Only by those who watched closely.
He asks himself now, looking out into the void:
“Is this the end, or just the beginning?”
He is exhausted. Sick. Worn.
But if he must go down, he won’t go crawling.
He will decide how.
Because even a Ghost… chooses when to vanish.