Evan woke up before his alarm and felt sharp and hungry like the world was waiting for him. The market opened at nine thirty but he was at his desk before nine. He drank cheap gas station coffee and stared at the watchlist like it was a menu. He told himself today was the day he would scale up. He said it out loud because saying it out loud made it feel already true. He felt older than twenty three and smarter than everyone he worked with at the warehouse. He felt like he was ahead of time

The chat room was already loud. People posting symbols and arrows and words like easy money and next runner. A guy with a wolf emoji next to his name wrote load here and Evan did not even ask why, he just followed. He clicked buy with most of his account and leaned back in his chair with a smile. The stock jumped five cents then ten and his unrealized profit flashed on the screen. One hundred and forty eight dollars. He felt heat in his face. He could not stop grinning. He sold fast. He locked the gain. The money was real. He covered his mouth and laughed into his palm like he had stolen something and gotten away with it

One trade felt like proof. Proof that he was right. Proof that this was not luck. Proof that he did not need school, or permission, or a boss. He thought about how long it took to make one hundred and forty eight dollars at the warehouse. Almost two whole shifts. Ten hours of lifting boxes and getting yelled at for being a minute late from break. Here it was a click. A click and a breath. He sat there shaking his head and thinking I am not staying in that life

He started to believe that winning was normal. He believed that speed was power. He believed that thinking too much got in the way. He felt like the market was a door left unlocked and he was the only one brave enough to just walk in

At lunch he did not eat. He pulled out his phone and traded in his car behind the warehouse. He watched a cheap small cap stock spike on news he did not even read. He chased it near the top. It dropped on him. His account flashed red for a moment. He felt a twist in his chest. It was not fear. It was anger. How dare it go down. He doubled his position. It moved back up just enough and he sold flat. No gain. No loss. He exhaled like he had just finished a fight

He told himself that was control. He told himself pros always add size when the market disrespects them. He even repeated it in his head like a rule. Add size when the market disrespects you. He did not see that as danger. He saw it as confidence. He loved how that felt

That night he watched videos with titles like How I Made 10K In One Week Trading With No Experience and You Can Quit Your Job After You Learn This One Pattern. The people in the videos looked young like him. Hoodies. Sneakers. Expensive chairs. City views behind them. No suits. No ties. No stress. They talked about freedom and private gyms and weekday brunch. They never talked about taxes or blown accounts or margin calls. He listened anyway. He wanted their life and he wanted it now

He started writing numbers on a legal pad. If I can make one hundred a day, that is five hundred a week. If I can make five hundred a day, that is twenty five hundred a week. That is one hundred grand a year. One hundred grand sounds like a real salary and I do not even need a boss. He circled one hundred grand six times. His heart beat faster each time his pen made a loop around the number

He said to himself I am not stupid. I am not lazy. I can do this. This is math. This is easy. This is not luck. I just need to size up and repeat

He could not see how thin the ice already was

The more he believed in fast money, the less he cared about anything slow. He stopped answering texts from his mom when she asked if he was eating well. He stopped answering his friend Mike who kept sending him links to normal jobs in logistics because Mike thought stability was safety. Stability felt like giving up. Stability felt like sitting in line behind old men in bad jackets begging for paid time off. Evan did not want that picture in his future so he pushed it out of his mind

He lay in bed with the lights off and the glow of the second monitor still on even though he was not looking at it anymore. He could hear New York noise out the window. Cars. Distant sirens. Someone yelling at someone in the street like always. The air felt thick and a little warm. His body was tired but his mind would not cool down. He kept replaying that first green trade in his head. He thought about what it would feel like to do that ten times in one day. He imagined calling his boss and saying I am done I am not coming in tomorrow I am done being owned

He stared up at the ceiling and whispered This is it. This is the door. Do not be scared. Walk through

The next morning he went even harder. He took almost his full account and dumped it into a fast moving stock at the open. His hands were sweating but he told himself that was normal for warriors. The price moved up then down then up again. His unrealized profit bounced all over the place like a heartbeat on a hospital screen. He felt alive in a way nothing else in his life gave him. School never made him feel that. Work never made him feel that. Friends never made him feel that. Only this screen did

He sold too early again but it was still green and he did not care. He was now up almost four hundred in two days. Four hundred in two days felt like proof he was already different than most people. He told himself most people would live their whole year without ever feeling this free

By the end of that week his mind had already rewritten his identity without asking him. He was no longer Evan who unloads pallets. He was Evan the trader. He had not earned the title but he wore it in his head like a jacket that finally fit. He felt taller walking into work even though nothing else had changed. The warehouse still smelled like dust and forklift gas. The pay was still low. The managers still spoke to him like he could be replaced in five minutes. But inside his mind he had already left them behind

He began to hate anything that slowed him down. He stopped waiting for signals. He stopped reading news. He stopped asking why a stock was going up. All that mattered was that it was going up and he could press buy. He thought pressing buy was action and action was success. He confused movement with progress and speed with intelligence and luck with skill

He did not write down risk. He did not set stops. He did not have rules. He said to himself Rules are for people who cannot feel the flow. I can feel the flow

The market listened to that too and it remembered

Because the market always remembers boys like him