To: Fuckfaces & Co.
In 1999, on a cold autumn day, in a dingy hospital with peeling paint and old water stains climbing the walls like rot had ambition, a boy was born in the worst of the barrios in all the city. A month early. Big anyway. Red anyway. Screaming like the world had already pissed him off and he wanted names. Which, honestly, fair. The nurse dropped her pen three rooms away. He heard it. His father tried to hide the cigarette on his breath with cheap mint gum. He smelled both. The woman in the next room wore too much cologne, chemical flowers over sweat and fear, and he smelled that too. A machine clicked behind a wall. A baby cried four doors down. Someone whispered a prayer. Someone else lied to a doctor. The lights buzzed. The pipes groaned. Shoes squeaked on cheap tile. The whole world opened its mouth and screamed. So he screamed back.
It was my parents that saved me.
Not medicine.
Not doctors.
Not the system.
Not one of your fucking charity foundations with smiling board members and tax shelters dressed up like mercy.
Them.
My mother.
My father.
When the world got too loud, they made it smaller.
When light hurt, they covered the windows.
When sound came in like knives, they learned to whisper before I learned words.
When I tried to tear out my eyes because everything was too bright, too sharp, too much, they held my hands until my voice broke and then made me tea with honey like pain was just another storm to wait out.
When I heard things I should not have heard, they believed me.
When I smelled smoke before anyone else, they moved.
When I cried until my throat bled, they did not call me broken.
They called me their son.
They called me little demon.
Pequeño demonio.
And they said it with love.
That was the first miracle.
Not a god.
Not a corporation.
Not a flag.
Two tired people in a room too small for hope, deciding that I was worth the work.
They were all that was good in the world.
All the love.
All the kindness.
All the light.
They were my life.
You took them from me.
I was ten. Barely ten. Old enough to know death. Too young to understand why adults with clean hands and expensive suits could order it from a distance and still sleep. They infringed upon your perfect illusion of power. That was their crime. They helped people you wanted desperate. They fed mouths you wanted hungry. They fixed things you wanted broken. They told the truth in rooms where lies had already been paid for. And for that, you killed them. Not with courage. Not face to face. Not even with hatred honest enough to look like hatred. You buried them under procedure. Under signatures. Under sealed orders. Under clean language. Collateral. Necessary pressure. Urban instability. Civil risk management. Corporate security action. What a pretty way to say murder. What a soft little pillow for your conscience. You killed the light. It is only fair that I kill you.
You call me a monster.
Fine.
Good.
I hope the word tastes like blood when you say it.
But do not pretend you do not know who built me.
Do not pretend I crawled out of the dark by myself.
You made the dark.
You paved it.
Patented it.
Sold naming rights to it.
You sat in your towers of gold and glass and bone, acting like gods because no one had dragged you down far enough to remind you that gods bleed too.
Corporate colossi.
Council carrion.
Neo-Mandarin wannabes with old-world flags tattooed over new-world greed.
You had all that money.
All that intelligence.
All that power.
Every resource ever stolen from every hand that actually made something.
And yet you are still just as fucking stupid as every tyrant before you.
You thought suffering made people obedient.
Sometimes it does.
For a while.
It makes them tired.
Hungry.
Afraid.
It teaches them to lower their eyes and keep their hands visible.
It teaches them to thank the boot for lifting slightly.
But there is a point.
There is always a point.
A line under the skin.
A final little wire.
You step on enough throats and eventually the ground starts learning your weight.
No.
I refuse this.
I tried, you know. That is the funny part. I tried to live. I tried to grow. I tried to be what they wanted. Not good. Good was too clean a word for what was left. But alive. Useful. Kind when I could manage it. Gentle when the world allowed it. I tried to be a person and not the weapon you kept insisting I was. But you bastards just kept kicking. Drove the heel deeper into my throat and called the choking peace. Everyone who could have taken me was cowed by your slander and threats. Every person who ever tried to help. Every family I ever made. Every room where I almost belonged. Every hand that reached. Every door that opened. You found it. You ruined it. You couldn't even let me have a pet. Do you know how small that is? How pathetic? How afraid you have to be of a child to take even that? I know. I know exactly how afraid you were. You should have been more afraid.
Because the joke is on you.
I was never the only one.
Never even close.
I am not the only child who watched the sky burn and learned the name of the company that sold the fuel.
I am not the only son who buried his parents under lies.
I am not the only daughter who learned that justice had a price tag and poverty was considered consent.
I am not the only body you counted wrong.
You stepped on millions and expected silence because silence was cheaper.
You taught us all the same lesson.
You taught us where the pain came from.
You taught us whose doors locked from the inside.
You taught us that mercy, when owned by monsters, is just another leash.
So what is more dangerous than someone with nothing left to lose?
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Cities full of them.
Continents full of them.
Every forgotten barrio.
Every poisoned district.
Every worker with metal in their lungs.
Every mother counting food in the dark.
Every father deciding which bill gets paid and which child gets medicine.
Every kid born under a logo instead of a flag.
You gave us despair.
Then you made one mistake.
You gave us something to hate.
Something with names.
Addresses.
Supply lines.
Board members.
Shareholders.
Security contractors.
Families.
Soft houses.
Glass walls.
You gave us direction.
For we who have lost everything, you have given us hope.
We have something to gain.
Something to strive for.
Something to burn.
We are Rebellion.
I was Vincent David Stone. My parents gave me that. I loved them for it. But that man is long dead. You killed him too. Put that on the report. File it properly. Stamp it with whatever little sigil helps you sleep.
My name is Prometheus.
And I will bring fire.
———-
"This was the message delivered this morning to the U.E.N Council by the terrorist now known as Prometheus."
The EOX News 7 anchor spoke with the polished calm of someone paid very well to sound like the world was not currently catching fire. Her face stayed composed.
Her eyes did not.
"No demands were made. No direct attack has been carried out against the council building at this time. However, within minutes of the message being distributed across public, private, and compromised emergency networks, coordinated riots began across multiple major cities."
The screen shifted. Drone footage. Smoke blooming between towers. Armored police lines breaking under shields made from street signs, car doors, construction plating, and stolen ballistic panels.
A bank burning. A corporate recruitment center gutted. A security checkpoint overturned and dragged into the street like a dead animal
. People moving in formation. Not a mob. Not really. Something worse. Something awake.
"Authorities report that these riots are unusually organized. Participants have been seen wearing mixed military and civilian equipment marked with the word 'Rebellion.' Many are armed with ballistic weapons, armored vehicles, improvised explosive devices, anti-drone measures, and, in some cities, captured police and private-security assets."
The anchor swallowed. Barely. Professional enough to hide it from most people.
"U.E.N officials have condemned the message as an act of domestic terror and have urged all citizens to remain indoors. Corporate security coalitions have declared emergency authority in affected districts. Curfews are now active in—"
The broadcast glitched. Half a second. A gray bar. A burst of static. Then black. White letters appeared. Simple. Ugly. Honest.
WE ARE REBELLION.
The screen burned red.