How to Rule the World

It began with a message only he could see.

On the morning of August 3rd, 2025, Julian Raith opened his laptop to find a single line blinking on the otherwise blank screen:

> “Rule 1: Destroy the illusion.”

There was no sender. No subject. No app open. Just a line, like it had always been there.

Julian was a 32-year-old data analyst. Average face, quiet life. The kind of man people forgot five minutes after meeting. No criminal record. No known paranoia. No history of delusions.

He stared at the message for five minutes, then closed the laptop, thinking it was a prank.

The next morning, the message had changed.

> “Rule 2: Understand the code in everything.”

And below that, a time: 12:34 PM.

That day, at exactly 12:34 PM, Julian watched a man in a business suit collapse on the train platform across from him. Heart attack. Dead before the medics arrived.

Julian hadn’t told anyone about the message.

He didn’t sleep that night.

By Day 4, Julian had received four “rules.” Each one came with a time. Each time, something occurred—a car crash, a building blackout, a man arrested right outside his window.

He started writing the rules down.

Rule 1: Destroy the illusion.

Rule 2: Understand the code in everything.

Rule 3: All systems are masks.

Rule 4: People don’t want freedom. They want narrative.

Julian stopped going to work. He stopped answering calls. He just watched. Waited. And every day, the message returned with a new rule.

And a new event.

> “Rule 7: You are not alone.”

Under it, a video appeared. Surveillance footage from an apartment hallway—his hallway. Julian watched himself open his door at 3:04 a.m., walk down the corridor… then vanish mid-stride, like his body was erased frame by frame.

Except… he had no memory of it.

There was a knock at the door that night.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he opened the door at dawn.

There, on his welcome mat, was a single black envelope.

Inside:

> “There are others.”

> “If you want to rule the world, meet us.”

A time. A place. No signature.

THE MEETING

It was an abandoned hotel in the outskirts of the city—once luxurious, now forgotten. Inside, in the ballroom where chandeliers still clung like fossils, Julian met them.

Ten others.

All had received messages. All had followed the rules.

They called it “The Code.” A set of principles that, when followed, revealed the invisible scaffolding behind everything—finance, politics, media, even public opinion. Every trend, every panic, every vote—engineered by someone.

Or something.

Julian spoke little. He didn’t trust them. But he listened.

Each had a role: The Analyst. The Planner. The Disruptor. The Ghost. The Archivist.

Julian was labeled “The Architect.”

He didn't know what it meant.

Week 3: Rule 15

> “To rule the world, make them believe they chose you.”

Julian tested it. He created a fake social media account, posted anonymously about a made-up conspiracy involving coffee brands and subliminal codes in barcodes.

Within 24 hours, it had 40,000 shares.

By Day 3, morning shows were debating it. A U.S. Senator tweeted a response.

> He had created panic in under 72 hours.

He felt a thrill. Not joy. Not power. Something colder. Something cleaner.

Control.

But the deeper he went, the stranger it got.

Julian began to see patterns that didn’t exist—yet. He would dream of stock crashes before they happened. Sense events seconds before they occurred. He started hearing faint whispers in screens, words blinking in reflections, hidden in static:

> “Keep going.”

> “You are close.”

> “Rewrite the world.”

He began to wonder if the rules weren’t being given to him… but emerging from him.

Rule 22: Kill the reflection.

Julian’s mirror image no longer moved with him. It smiled when he didn’t. It blinked out of sync. One night, it mouthed words he didn’t say:

> “You’re not the first.”

That night, Julian broke every mirror in his apartment.

When he woke up, they were whole again.

The Twist: Rule 28

Julian returned to the hotel, desperate for answers.

It was empty.

Dust undisturbed.

No footprints. No signs anyone had ever been there.

The ballroom door creaked open on its own.

Inside: rows of black chairs. On each seat, a photograph of him. Different ages. Different eras. Same eyes.

One photo was dated 1946.

Another: 2031.

On the ballroom wall: a giant mirror.

He walked toward it—and the reflection didn’t follow.

He stared at the other man. Same face. Same eyes.

The man behind the glass said only:

> “We never ruled the world.”

> “We are the world.”

Final Message

When Julian got home, the final message blinked on his laptop.

> “Rule 30: Once you understand the system, you become it.”

Then the screen turned black.

His name disappeared from every database the next day.

Bank accounts: gone.

Social security: blank.

No digital trace.

No Julian Raith.

Only The Architect.

THE END.