The first thing Samuel Black felt was the rhythmic, mocking slap of the tide against his face. He opened his eyes, but the world was a blur of blinding white sand and jagged black rock. His lungs burned, a raw, ragged heat that forced him to cough up a mixture of brine and bile.

He was alive. But as he looked at his surroundings—an empty, sun-drenched shore backed by an impenetrable wall of tropical green—the silence of the island began to fill with the noise of his memories.

The memory was a sharp contrast to the salt and sand. It was the smell of expensive leather and the hum of the city seventy floors below. Sam had been hunched over his desk, finalizing the blueprints for a neural interface, when the door to his penthouse swung open.

Daria stood there, stunning in a silk dress, but her hand was locked in Noyal’s. Behind them, four of the company’s "security" contractors stood like stone gargoyles.

"Daria? You’re early," Sam said, rubbing his eyes. "Noyal, what’s going on? We have the board meeting tomorrow."

"There is no board meeting for you, Sam," Daria said. Her voice, usually soft, was now brittle and sharp. "I’m here to tell you I’m not marrying you. I’m done wasting my life with a loser who lives in a lab."

Sam stood up, stunned. "A loser? Daria, we’re getting married in a month! I’ve built a multi-billion dollar empire for us. What are you talking about?"

Noyal stepped forward, a predatory smirk playing on his lips. "She's talking about reality, Sam. You’ve been living in this hole, staring at circuits, while I was building the world around you. You’re the CEO for the name on the door, but the company is mine. Every patent for that 100-terabyte chip? Registered to my holding company. Those 'standard' forms I had you sign last month? Those were the final transfers of your remaining shares."

"You’re lying," Sam hissed, his heart hammering. "We started this together. From the orphanage to the 100-terabyte chip—we were brothers, Noyal!"

"Brothers?" Noyal laughed, the sound echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass. "You were the nerd who played with toys, and I was the one who turned those toys into gold. You’re an idiot, Sam. You should have been more careful. Only the strong survive in this world, and you? You’re just a component. A part that’s become redundant."

Sam turned to Daria, his eyes pleading. "Daria, listen to me. Let him have the company. I built it once, I can build it again. I’ll make things again, bigger than Nextgen. You loved me when we had nothing—let’s go back to that. Let’s build our own life together."

Daria’s lip curled in disgust. "That was before, Sam. I’ve grown used to this lifestyle. I’m not going back to 'nothing' with a fool like you. Who knows if you'll just lose it all again? Noyal and I are getting married next week. He knows how to keep what he takes."

Sam’s world collapsed. The rage finally broke through the shock. "I’ll kill you, Noyal! I’ll go to the courts! I’ll tell the world what you are!"

"Who told you that you're leaving this room tonight?" Noyal whispered. He gave a slight nod.

A baseball bat whistled through the air. The impact at the base of Sam's skull was the last thing he felt before the darkness took him.

While Samuel lay on the sand, the erasure of his life was being finalized at the orphanage where he was raised.

Aunt Marie looked up from her desk as Noyal Wick entered her office. He wasn't wearing his usual smirk; he wore a mask of practiced, heavy grief. To Marie, Noyal was like a second son—the boy who had helped Sam build an empire.

"Noyal? Where’s Samuel?" Marie stood up, her heart sinking.

Noyal took her hands, his voice trembling with a calculated lie. "Marie... there was an incident. The pressure of the audit... Sam had a total psychological breakdown. He wasn't himself. He drove out to the bridge... and he jumped."

Marie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "No... not my Samuel."

"I searched for him," Noyal continued, squeezing her hands. "I had my men scouring the banks, but we couldn't find him. The current is too strong. Between the fall and the sharks in the estuary... the police say there's no hope. He’s gone, Marie. He’s probably dead."

He left a folder of forged "embezzlement" papers on her desk—evidence to ensure she would never defend Sam’s name—and walked out. He left her in the silence of a home that had just lost its greatest hero.

Back on the shore, Samuel finally managed to sit up. His bespoke suit was a ruined, salty rag.

He looked at the horizon. There were no ships. No planes. He was on an island, presumed a suicide by the woman who raised him, and replaced by the man who called him a brother. Noyal believed the river and the sharks had finished the job.

Samuel looked at his hands. They were shaking from the trauma, but the mind that had built a billion-dollar empire was still intact. He didn't have a computer. He didn't have a lab.

He looked at the jungle, then at the sharp volcanic rocks near the tide line. Noyal thought he was a "nerd" who couldn't handle the real world. But a nerd understood how to manipulate the environment. A nerd knew how to turn a survival situation into an engineering problem.

"You should have made sure I was dead, Noyal," Sam whispered to the empty wind.

He stood up, his legs wobbling but holding. He needed water. He needed fire. And eventually, he would need a way back to a world that thought he was a ghost.