Chapter 19:

CH 15: Brake the Plate

The Wildworld

#Aiden

I scooped a lump of cream from the jar, wincing as I smeared it across my cheeks, my scalp, the skin still glowing where the blade had kissed too close. The cream stung, same as it always did. I never knew if that meant it was working or if it was just punishment disguised as medicine.

All the other kids had scattered to do chores. No one told them to. They just knew. Like dust learning where not to settle. The air had shifted the moment I walked in with that cut across my cheek. The moment Sister Miriam turned her back and whispered something sharp to one of the older girls. That’s when they started moving—folding sheets that would never be warm, wiping counters that would never be clean, pretending like any of it mattered.

The nuns had vanished into that side hall for an emergency meeting with Grandma Wanjiku. Probably about me. I could hear them murmuring behind the wall, clipped and frantic. Something was unraveling.

The sink was too tall. I had to climb Sister Miriam’s rickety stool to reach the basin. I scratched three line into it and a number. It creaked every time I shifted—like it was trying to confess all the other bodies it had failed to hold up before mine.

My arms were buried elbow-deep in greasy water. I scrubbed at a cracked plate while the smell of old cabbage stew clung to the air like regret. It had been three days since we’d had anything that tasted like food. And somehow the stew still lingered like a ghost with unfinished business.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hallway—the older nuns hunched around Wanjiku like crows guarding a corpse. She hadn’t spoken in weeks, and now she was whispering so fiercely you could feel the sharpness in the air. It tasted metallic, like the second before a storm.

I kept scrubbing. It was all I could do to stay quiet inside.

Someone was sewing a torn curtain in the corner—needle jerking like she didn’t know whether to stitch it or stab it. A boy with snot on his lip was drying dishes with a cloth that looked more like a rag from the boiler room. In the corner, two toddlers had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. No one had changed them. Their onesies were stained and stiff. I didn’t know their names. I wasn’t sure anyone did.

Then the door slammed open.

"MOVE."

A group of boys rushed in, breathless, plates clattering. One slipped—ceramic exploded across the floor. I flinched, but didn’t stop. Didn’t turn.

And then... him.

He walked in slow. Measured. Like he’d been waiting. A boy with soft eyes and softer steps. One hand behind his back. The other held a plate.

Not just any plate. Too smooth. Too bright. Not the chipped gray like ours—it shimmered.

I turned just as he dropped it into the soapy water beside me.

It exploded.

A flash. White-hot and screaming. A silver shard zipped past—

Crack.

My glasses split. Something lodged in the lens—millimeters from my eye.

My breath stopped. I looked down. My watch—cracked. A hairline fracture through the second hand.

The boy gasped. "I—I didn’t mean—"

I grabbed his shirt. Just two fingers. Cold. Wet with soap.

I looked up slowly. Something hard settled in my chest.

"You did that on purpose, didn’t you?" My voice broke. Then snapped. "Admit it."

One more breath. Then:

"Before I use this soap and wash away your damn black skin."

The whole room stopped.

Breath. Frozen.

A spoon dropped.

I jumped down from the stool. My broken glasses hit the floor. A clink. One lens still glowing faintly from the embedded shard.

Then I ran.

My fist landed first. He went down hard.

Again. Again.

Thunder.

His blood on my hands, on the tiles, in my mouth.

He screamed. I couldn’t stop. Something had opened in me. Something hot and hollow. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

He raised a hand. His scope—large. I felt it.

The drawer flew open. Spoons. Forks. A knife. Rising.

I saw them. Felt them coming. Light and danger and edge.

I raised my hand.

One mana side—I’d been training it in secret.

And then—

A gun. Formed from light. From heat.

Blue.

It fired. Not a spell. Not a thought.

A scream made of bandwidth

Silver cutlery melted in mid-air.

"THAROZH!"

Sister Miriam.

She clapped.

BOOM.

Silence.

The fire vanished. The cutlery fell. Magic died.

Her eyes—blue-white. Electric.

"Rin Roan! What are you doing?"

Roan. That was his name.

He wiped his face. Blood. Fury.

"What am I doing?! You brought _him_ here! We don’t have food! He burns the air with a mana sides he shouldn’t even know! And you let him stay?!"

He ran.

Gone.

Silence.

I stood, chest heaving. Fingers twitching from power I didn’t know how to hold.

The other kids stared. Not just in shock. But like they were deciding what I was now.

I bent down. Picked up my glasses. Cracked. One lens missing.

I put them on anyway.

Climbed back onto the stool.

Picked up a plate.

And slammed it into the sink.

Shatter.

Another.

Shatter.

Another.

Shatter.

Somewhere behind me, a baby started crying. Another joined. Then more. A chorus of grief from children who hadn’t yet learned language.

Sister Miriam yanked me back. Hands on my shoulders.

"Stop it—Rin—_stop it!_"

I trembled.

Tears ran down my face. Quiet. My breath hitched.

I looked at the broken glass.

Whispered:

"I don't want to be here."

And then I cried.

Not loud.

Just enough for the world to know something had cracked in me, too.

—

Later, I changed coats. Same size. Same stains. Same smell of blood and oil.

I sat alone. A forgotten corridor beneath the western antechamber. A shaft of light broke through a crack in stained glass. Lit the dust like judgment.

A book lay open beside me. _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._ Pen. Scribbles. Thoughts I didn’t want.

I flipped a page and read aloud, "Civilizations die from within, like old gods forgotten."

I closed the book and pulled out my cracked watch, holding it in both hands, but it didn’t tick.

"Why do you have to remind me of him?" I whispered, and the watch stayed silent.

I stood and threw it across the room. The glass cracked and split, then the watch lit up—blue, slow, like it was waking.

It slid across the floor before slamming into my chest, molten and searing, and I screamed.

Then:

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[ INITIALIZING ]

[ DIALOGUE INTERFACE SYNC... ]

[ CONNECTED ]

Letters flickered across the cracked face: