There was silence on the other end. A pause… Then a boy's voice rang in the background.

"Mom! Can you help me with this?"

Instantly, her attention shifted. Sid could hear it in the way her voice softened, the way she called back to the boy.

"Just a second, honey!"

Her tone was full of care, full of warmth. A warmth Sid hadn't heard directed at him in years. He watched the blank wall in front of him, expression flat.

"Yeah. I'm gonna hang up now. Go take care of your son."

"Sid, wait—"

The call ended with a beep. Sid lowered the phone slowly, then pressed his hand over his face. For a moment he sat in silence, the weight in his chest felt heavy. Then, with a sudden burst of frustration, he slammed the phone against the desk. The sound cracked through the small room. He exhaled hard, shoulders trembling slightly.

Turning to his computer, he tapped the mouse. The monitor glowed awake, revealing his desktop wallpaper… a photo from long ago. A small boy, no older than five, sitting on his father's shoulders while his mother held him close, all three smiling like nothing could ever break them.

"After Dad left… and you found someone new… you still called me, Mom. You kept me alive with those calls. But in the end, you've got them now. A new family. And every time I remember it—every time I see you with them—I just… I just can't…"

His eyes lingered on the screen. The longer he stared, the more it hurt. He clicked, changed the wallpaper to black. The picture vanished in an instant, replaced with emptiness.

Tears slipped down before he could stop them. He pressed his palms over his eyes, but it was no use. His breath hitched, and the sound of his sobs filled the empty room. Midnight wrapped around him like a heavy blanket, the silence pressing close. At last, exhausted, Sid cried himself into sleep.

Sid woke up with a stiff neck, his cheek pressed to the cold surface of his desk. His back ached from sleeping hunched over, and his eyes felt swollen, heavy from the crying he had done the night before.

He sat there in silence for a moment, breathing slowly, until his phone buzzed on the desk. With a slow hand, he picked it up and tapped the screen. A message lit up, the sender's name unmistakable: Big D, the bald big boy who had been his friend since the beginning.

Big D: "BROOO! ONE. MILLION. You freaking did it, Sid! The kid who got kicked out of school just hit a million followers! Damn, I'm proud of you, man. You're the real deal now, celebrity level! And hey, don't think you're escaping me. We're celebrating this with dinner, bro. You're treating me this time, no excuses!"

Sid, half-awake, suddenly jolted upright from the message. Did he just hit his first million subscribers? He immediately opened his channel, scrolling straight to his profile. There it was, his subscriber count: 1,000,918.

His heart jumped, and the phone slipped from his grasp. He stood frozen, mouth hanging open, until the reality finally sank in. Then he shouted, voice breaking the silence.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!"

He wanted to cry, but the tears had already been drained from the night before. Instead, he bounced on his feet, jumping again and again as joy surged through him like fire.

"I-I freaking did it! A million! After all those sleepless nights, those rooftops, the scrapes, the bruises— I actually made it! Holy shit… I did it!"

Sid grabbed his phone, flipped the camera toward himself, and hit record. His grin was wide, his hair messy from jumping around, but his eyes were burning with excitement.

"Yo! SIDWILDRUNS here and holy shit, we did it! One million subscribers. I can't even put into words how much this means to me. You guys have been with me since the start, through every run, every climb, every dumb slip I posted, all of it. And now, here we are. One million strong."

He leaned closer to the camera, voice dropping to a serious tone.

"As promised, I'm gonna climb the 700-meter tower. Yeah, that one. And this time? For the first time ever… I'm doing it live. No edits, no cuts. Just me, the climb, and you watching every step of the way. We're going LIVE at 3 AM sharp!"

He smiled, lifting a fist to the camera.

"So gear up, because Sid Wilder is about to give you the run of your lives. Let's make history together!"

He paused, rubbing his eye with a sheepish chuckle.

"And uh, sorry… my eyes are a little swollen. I literally just woke up."

Then his voice cracked into pure excitement, shouting into the mic.

"BUT THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! WE DID IT! I FREAKING DID IT, WHOO!!!"

With that, he hit stop and uploaded the video immediately. No edits, no filters. Just a title, a short description, and his raw excitement. Afterward, he set up the live event for 3 AM sharp. Sid leaned back, smiling as he let out a long breath. For a moment, the weight of it all sank in.

But then the fire returned. His promise burned in his chest he would climb that tower. No backing out. Before anything else, though, he remembered Big D's message. Sid opened it and quickly typed his reply.

Sid: "Damn right, bro! ONE MILLION! Can you believe this? From zero to a million! WE did it. And fine, dinner's on me. Just don't order half the damn menu like last time, Big D."

With joy still shining in his eyes, Sid set the phone down. He turned back to his daily routine, moving through each task like clockwork. The rush of hitting a million subscribers still thrummed in his veins, keeping him upright despite the rough night of little sleep and the ache left in his body from yesterday's storm of emotions.

None of that mattered now. Today was the start of something bigger. He had a promise to keep, and the tower waited for him.

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