Ethan didn't go back under the overpass.
He didn't even look over his shoulder until he'd crossed three blocks, slipped down an alley that smelled like old rain and grease, and climbed the external stairs of a crumbling apartment building that should have been condemned years ago.
The place he rented wasn't really a home. It was a box with a lock, and the lock only worked when you jiggle it a certain way. The hallway outside it was always damp, the paint peeling in long strips like dead skin. Someone down the hall kept a radio playing late-night gospel every night as if God could be lured in by volume.
Ethan fumbled for his key.
His fingers were numb. His mind was worse.
When the door finally opened, he stepped inside and locked it behind him with shaking hands, then leaned his forehead against the wood as if it could keep the world out.
The bag hung from his shoulder, weightless and warm. It shouldn't have felt real, and yet his back still remembered its presence like a bruise.
He turned, breathing hard.
The room was one step above a storage closet. A mattress on the floor with a blanket too thin for winter. A cracked mirror resting against the wall. A small table with one chair and a hot plate that sometimes worked. The sink coughed rust when you turned it on.
Ethan set the bag on the table carefully.
For a long moment he just stared at it.
The silence wasn't comforting. It pressed at his ears, thick with the question he didn't want to ask out loud.
What are you?
He reached for the flap.
The moment his fingers touched the edge of the bag's mouth, the air changed again—like a shift in pressure before a storm. He hesitated, listening.
Nothing.
No voices. No footsteps outside. No sirens.
Just the faint buzz of the building's dying lightbulb.
Ethan opened the bag and peered inside.
The same impossible darkness looked back.
He swallowed, then reached in.
This time, the darkness didn't feel empty. It felt… attentive. Like water that knew the shape of his hand.
His fingertips brushed something soft.
Fabric.
He pulled it out.
A black beanie hat.
Ethan blinked at it, then laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. The laugh came out wrong—half relief, half panic.
He reached in again.
A thick winter jacket came out next, the kind that would cost more than Ethan had ever been able to afford even when life was still pretending to be fair. The lining was clean. The zipper worked. The pockets were deep.
He held it for a second, then pressed it to his face.
It smelled like nothing. Like it had never been worn.
He set it down, then reached in again. His movements were faster now, restless.
A pair of boots.
A bottle of water.
A loaf of bread still warm.
Ethan stopped with the bread in his hands, staring at it like it was holy.
He tore off a piece and ate without thinking. The first bite hit his stomach like a quiet explosion. Real food—soft, fresh. Not donated. Not stale. Not an afterthought.
His eyes burned.
He swallowed hard and took another bite, and another, until half the loaf was gone.
Then he forced himself to stop.
Because the bag wasn't a miracle if it made him stupid.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat down slowly on the chair, staring at the bag like it might blink.
The question returned, heavier now.
Is it endless?
Ethan leaned forward and reached inside again, more cautiously.
His fingers met metal.
He pulled out a small pistol.
It wasn't futuristic or antique. It looked like a normal handgun, clean and loaded.
Ethan's stomach tightened. He set it down on the table as if it might accuse him of something.
He reached again, and his hand found something colder, longer.
A knife. Sharp enough that the edge caught the dim light and threw it back in a thin glare.
Ethan's breathing changed.
The bag was answering him.
Not just giving him things.
Reading something deeper.
He stared at the weapons on the table, then at the loaf of bread, then at the jacket.
Food. Warmth. Protection.
It wasn't random.
It was… responsive.
Ethan sat back.
His mind moved through the simple logic of a desperate man: if a bag could give him what he needed, then he could fix his life. He could pay rent. He could eat. He could stop freezing.
Then the next thought came in, poisonous and seductive:
If it could give him what he needed…
Could it give him what he wanted?
Ethan swallowed.
He looked around his miserable room. Looked at the cracked mirror, the stained carpet, the peeling paint.
A life patched together with cheap tape and exhausted hope.
He leaned forward again and held the bag open with both hands.
His voice came out low, almost embarrassed by itself.
"Okay," he whispered. "If you're real…"
He hesitated, then spoke as if daring the world to hear.
"I need… money. Not just coins. Not just bars. I need enough to… start over."
The moment the words left his mouth, the bag's darkness stirred.
Not like cloth shifting.
Like a tide pulling back.
Ethan reached inside.
The space was colder now, deeper. His hand brushed something thick—paper bundled tight. He pulled it out and froze.
A stack of cash.
Not a few bills.
Hundreds. Thousands.
He pulled more. Another stack. Another. The table filled. The chair creaked as he leaned forward, stunned. His fingers counted without meaning to. The total climbed beyond his ability to grasp it.
Ethan's mouth went dry.
He sat there, hands hovering over the money like he was afraid it would vanish if he touched it too firmly.
A slow pressure started to build in his chest. Not happiness.
Not yet.
Something like dread.
Because money was never just money. Money was attention. Money was questions. Money was danger.
And the bag had no limits. Which meant the danger had no limits either.
Ethan forced himself to breathe.
He scooped the stacks back into the bag quickly, as if hiding the proof would make the reality less real. The darkness swallowed them without a sound.
He sat back down hard, chair legs scraping.
He stared at the bag.
"Why me?" he asked, voice hoarse.
The bag didn't answer.
It couldn't speak.
But the air in the room trembled.
Not from wind.
From something else.
Ethan felt it again—that sensation of being noticed. Like a hand hovering over the top of his skull, not touching, just weighing him.
He looked toward the cracked mirror. For a second, he thought he saw movement behind his reflection—something tall and pale in the dark of the room.
He blinked.
Nothing.
But his skin stayed prickled.
Ethan stood abruptly, boots scraping the floor. He paced once, then twice, then stopped in front of the bag again.
He needed rules.
Every power had rules. Everything in life had rules, even when you didn't know them until they broke you.
He swallowed and leaned close to the bag as if it were a person.
"Alright," he murmured. "I'm not dumb. You're not a gift."
He hesitated, then said the word like it tasted bitter.
"You're a test."
The bag sat silent, soft, harmless-looking.
Ethan's gaze shifted to the pistol and knife on the table.
He picked up the pistol and checked it the way he'd seen people do in movies. It was loaded. Real. Heavy.
He set it down again and stared at it, anger rising—not at the weapon, but at the fact it existed on his table at all.
"You give me what I need," he whispered, "and you give me what I'm afraid I'll need."
He rubbed his face with both hands.
Outside, a siren wailed and faded.
Ethan looked at the door, then back to the bag.
He tried to imagine a normal future. A job. A bank account. A small apartment with a heater that worked. A bed that didn't sit on the floor. Maybe even… someone to come home to.
The thought was dangerous.
He had learned not to want too much, because wanting made you a target.
But the bag had already placed a target on him. He could feel it like a mark.
Ethan opened the bag again.
This time, he didn't ask for gold.
He didn't ask for money.
He asked for something else.
"A way out," he said quietly. "Not just from being broke. From… everything. From this life."
The bag's darkness shifted.
Ethan reached inside.
His fingers brushed paper again, but different—thin, crisp.
He pulled out an envelope.
On the front, in neat handwriting that looked too clean to belong to the world he lived in, was his name:
ETHAN.
No last name. Just Ethan.
His throat tightened.
He stared at the envelope, then at the bag. The bag sat there like an animal that had just laid something at his feet.
Ethan opened the envelope with shaking fingers.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
A location.
A time.
A name.
MAYA.
Under it, one sentence:
She will save you if you do not ruin yourself first.
Ethan stared until the words blurred.
He read it again. And again.
His heartbeat filled the room.
The bag didn't just make objects.
It made paths.
It made inevitabilities.
It made… story.
Ethan's hands trembled harder.
He looked up at the cracked mirror again.
This time, he didn't imagine movement.
He saw it.
A shadow, just behind him, tall and thin, standing in the corner where no one could stand.
No face.
No eyes.
Only the sense of a smile.
Ethan spun around, pistol snatched from the table.
The room was empty.
His breath came in sharp, panicked pulls.
He lowered the gun slowly and turned back toward the bag.
The envelope lay open beside it.
Ethan stared at the name.
Maya.
He didn't know who she was.
But the bag did.
And something else did too.
Ethan swallowed, and for the first time since he'd stopped believing in anything, a new fear took root in him:
Not fear of dying.
Fear of living long enough to see what the bag was really buying.
He closed the bag with deliberate care, like shutting a door to a room full of snakes, and slung it over his shoulder.
Then he walked to the window and looked out at the city.
The neon sign across the street blinked again.
OPEN.
Ethan's reflection in the glass looked like a man haunted by a miracle.
He glanced down at the paper one more time.
Location. Time. Name.
His life, rewritten in ink.
He whispered into the cold air, half a promise, half a warning.
"Alright… Maya."
Then he stepped away from the window, turned out the light, and prepared to walk into a future he didn't understand—carrying a bag that had already begun to reshape the world around him.