Her Betrayal, His Rebirth

on Ethan needed. Sarah and Mark were masters of presentation

line, Sarah' s voice was tig

'Chrono Rift' so much

appens when you have the hottest game on the market

spun the failure as a mark of success. It was a lie, slick and practiced, and their aud

e didn't need to watch them

the fringe of the gaming world, in forgotten forums and small Discord servers where real developers and

is forum posts from years ago. Mark wasn' t just unoriginal, he was a thief. His digital footprint was a trail of

ered Isles," the game's first major DLC. It promised new

old "Nexus" hard drive again, navigating to a folder labeled "Scrapped Ideas." There it was. An almost identical drawing of a crystalline tree he' d made in col

a

't just riding the coattails of "Aetheria's" stolen hype, he was actively pillaging Ethan's

was a genius. To Ethan,

st a few days later, g

incredible ideas?" the

ug, as if he were a vessel for some divine inspiration. "I

isionary. That' s why I left my old life behind. I saw this raw, unstoppable talen

tner was stealing his college drawings. They didn't even see him as a threat. They thought he was a broken man, a

post angry comments. He be

ame a digital archeologist. He took screenshots. He used the Wayback Machine to archive old forum pages where Mark had discussed concepts that were eerily si

ncrypted and backed up in three separa

ah bought a new house, a sprawling modern mansion in the hills. They did a nauseatingly cheerful tour of it on

op of the worl

le he was still struggling to get back on his feet. But with every piece of evidence he save

And he was quietly, patiently, g