Chapter 8 8
I looked at the manager, my voice cracking. “This is some kind of glitch, right? A prank? Like those TikTok scams where someone 'accidentally' becomes a billionaire and then ends up in jail for tax fraud?”
He shook his head solemnly. “No glitch, no prank. It’s… quite real, ma’am. The deposit was timestamped and verified. It was processed three days ago.”
Three days ago.
The day I died. The day I got that winning ticket. The one I ate. The one he—Elias—stabbed me over. The one he tried to steal after bleeding me out on my living room floor.
So how?
How was the money in my account?
“I don’t understand…” I whispered.
And then it hit me.
The voice.
“I heard your wish, child…”
The ticket I ate… The one destroyed in my mouth… It wasn’t claimed through normal means.
This—this wasn’t just a lottery payout. This was magic. This was cosmic correction. This was a divine refund with interest for every damn thing I’d ever suffered.
And suddenly, my soaked clothes and worn sneakers didn’t matter.
Because Krystal McLaren may have walked into that bank poor, forgotten, and half-broken…
But I was about to walk out a freaking millionaire.
And for the first time in a long, long time—
I smiled.
“So can I withdraw my 1800$?”
The manager looked at me like I was a spoiled brat.
But to my surprise—no, scratch that—shocked was an understatement, because what the mustached manager said next made my brain spin like it had been tossed into a blender full of espresso shots and bad decisions.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said in his most polite banker voice, “but you can’t just withdraw $1,800. It’s… too big.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. My brain was buffering like a cheap motel’s Wi-Fi.
“Too big?” I echoed, leaning forward like I hadn’t just heard the most ridiculous thing this side of the apocalypse. “It’s not like I asked to withdraw a million. I asked for one thousand and eight hundred dollars. You know, like a normal struggling adult with bills?”
He nodded with that same uptight smile like he was delivering good news instead of punching my financial soul in the throat. “Yes, ma’am. But even with a new VIP status, that amount requires several days of processing and authorization.”
VIP?
Several days?!
Was I suddenly some kind of alien dignitary needing clearance from the Galactic Treasury?
I snapped, folding my arms with the fury of every underpaid, overworked soul out there. “Are you being serious right now? $1,800 isn’t even enough to pay for a decent apartment in this city.”
He fumbled, clearly not expecting pushback.
Then—then—he had the audacity to murmur under his breath, “Rich people are so weird…the VIP minimum cash that you can withdraw is ten dollars. Normal people like me? 1 dollar.”
My jaw dropped. “What? Are you even serious? Ten dollars is not even enough for a cab.”
Then he straightened up like he was announcing royal news. “Ma’am, ten dollars. You can buy a freaking Tesla Model S, a BMW M2, maybe even two—if the dealership’s running a holiday sale.”
I blinked so hard I swear I almost reset time.
“Ten dollars,” I repeated slowly, like I was tasting the words. “You’re telling me I can’t get $1,800 out, but I can take ten, and with that, I can buy a—what now? A luxury car?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He said it with the kind of conviction reserved for court verdicts and weather alerts.
“I just wanted to pay rent,” I muttered, staring at him in disbelief. “Not buy a damn Tesla and confuse the entire IRS.”
He nodded as if I’d thanked him.
I tried to argue again, pressing the issue, thinking maybe if I just explained it a different way—maybe this was a prank, or the banker was concussed, or maybe I died and woke up in a financial fever dream—but in the end, he shut it down with that same weirdly reverent tone.
“10$, that is the limit for VIP cash withdrawals, ma’am. You’re under a Tier-A Ultra Black Status Account. Physical cash is regulated for your protection. But—” he smiled like he was offering me a diamond-encrusted apology, “we’re honored to offer you your first official VIP withdrawal today.”
Then he reached into a drawer like he was about to hand me a solid gold nugget, and instead—
He gave me a new ten-dollar bill.
With two hands.
Like he was handing me the last sacred scroll of an extinct civilization.
I stared at it. Crisp. Perfect. Like it came from a money printer in heaven.
He looked at me with awe in his eyes. I was a goddess to him now. A dangerously confused, sopping wet, insulted, economically cursed goddess.
“And of course,” he said smoothly, “your card.” He produced a sleek, matte-black credit card tucked in a velvet envelope. My name was engraved in silver foil:
KRYSTAL MCLAREN
Tier A Ultra Black Client • Global Vault Network
I took it like I was being knighted. Except instead of royalty, I was apparently the owner of ten million dollars in a world where bread probably cost less than air.
I was confused. Deeply, fundamentally confused. Yes, I won that ten million dollar lottery. I knew that. But now? The way the manager said things, the way the system behaved—the way he treated ten bucks like I could buy half of Manhattan?
Because I was too confused to even think—too stunned to process—I walked home like a glitching robot with a God-tier credit card in my back pocket and a ten-dollar bill clutched like it was Excalibur.
The world outside looked… normal.
No one was panicking. No riots. No “Dollar Doomsday” coverage. Just a guy casually buying a street hotdog with literal pocket lint and a woman haggling over a designer purse like it was a bag of rice.
Was I the only one freaking out?