it was late at night, and a young man could be seen sitting at a picnic table sipping from a bottle of cranberry Vodka.

He almost never drank; he didn't even particularly like alcohol. Yet today, No... Tonight, he did, for he was a man who was heavily in debt and since shortly without a job.

Or it was more accurate to say his mother was in debt, and he loved her enough to share those burdens. Years ago, his father had this great idea to invest in a large plot of land to build houses on.

He got the land from a so-named friend, Great friend he was. The land was contaminated. Apparently, a company dumped chemicals on it or something of the sort.

His father trusted this " great deal " that his friend arranged for him and decided to get into something he had zero knowledge of. Going to this so-called friend for whatever he might need.

He built houses on the ground that wasn't too suitable to grow anything on, but that didn't matter. These days, you have artificial grass and other such things. The land came at a cheap price as well, which compensated for this fact. What was expensive and broke us were the houses that got built upon the land. Just when he got into the whole " ready to rent it out " regulations and stuff, he heard that the ground was contaminated. It was declared " unlivable".

His insurance didn't cover it, and after he tried to fight it, he only worked himself into a bigger debt.

Of course, He wasn't a rich man to start with; yes, he had some fair savings as well as a shop, but in order to pay for this, he took loans, Not all of which were legal, and put everything in it.

That foolish, naive mother of Max also jumped into the boat, Trusting his father to the fullest. She took similar loans where able, and they put everything they had into it.

So when it failed to bring a profit, the houses themselves were worthless, except for their salvageable material parts, Which weren't worth much.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

When they couldn't dig themselves out of the shit, That sorry excuse of a father dipped on them, The bastard killed himself and left them to deal with the problem. He didn't even create an accidental death or some insurance fraud. No, He just killed himself. Leaving his mother with his part of the debt, Oh, What a great thing marriage is.

Now, the legal debt wasn't the biggest problem. After all, There were only so many things that could be taken from you in a legal manner. Things considered " basic living necessities" by law couldn't be ripped off you. Now, the real problem lay with the unofficial loans made with unsavory people thinking they could launder some stuff in the building project.

Luckily his father only dealt with some local drugs gang, not some international mafia shit, So the money they could cough up only amounted to 300K. Which was a shitload, but not compared to building 5 houses. Which, after getting rid of everything from the houses to the land, left them with a debt of about 1.3mil excluding the gang money. So, They prioritized paying those gang members back. He, His sister, and his mother.

Max kept staring at that wooden fence while enjoying his drink. Although the drink itself wasn't that enjoyable, it sure was more enjoyable than everything he felt when sober at the moment....

That Rotten fence started to look more and more.... charming. After all, He was on a public spot," government property," so to say. It was a place to bike, walk, and relax, and a rotten fence like that at the edge of a cliff... or at least a steep fall downhill was just bad maintenance....

The country had enough money, So if he " accidentally" fell, then who knows. If his sister and mother played their cards right.....

Yet, in the end, he shook those thoughts away. Even if it could work out, he simply didn't want to. He loved his mother and sister and wouldn't want to abandon them. He rather lived shitty but somewhat happy with them than be dead and have his mother debt-free and guilt-ridden. Assuming such a way of trying to clear away a debt would even work.

In the end, he just signed and stood up, Making his way back home, slowly but surely. He continued sipping on his vodka as he wobbled back home. Yet, On his way home, he saw a falling star, and as childish as it was in his drunken stupor, he couldn't help but wish.

' I wish for a fair chance to solve all this, I don't care how. I just want a chance.....'

Yet, to his surprise, he saw this so-named " falling star " change course and fly right at him. He looked at it and looked back at his bottle of vodka and couldn't help but think "

' I think I've had more than enough for toda.... '

Yet before he could finish his mind, this so-called star hit him; he felt it somehow entering him, followed by a screaming pain and scream he did.

He felt something weird invading every fiber of his being, and slowly afterwards passed out.