The lottery numbers burned into my mind the second they appeared: 4, 12, 28, 35, 42, Mega Ball 11—numbers that split my life into two irreversible paths.

I was sitting alone in a cramped basement beneath a suburban home in Harborpoint City, a place that never truly felt like mine. The space was barely livable—a fold-out bed against cold concrete walls, a faulty heater, and a battered laptop resting on stacked boxes.