Homework

Shadows rose on the border of town, attempting to stand upright, but always a tad crooked. They scurried like ants whose hill had been disturbed. Disturbed by the only source of natural light that graced Pitstop. A phenomenon called Dayfall.

At exactly 11:11 a.m., the sun rose over the only spot in town that ever felt it. The Wishing Well. A massive pit, tens of thousands of feet beneath The Surface. At its base stood a veritable mountain of junk dumped by the Surface-Dwellers. And for about 11 minutes, when sunlight kissed the mountain, the locals scavenged for anything they could find. Rotten food. Electronics. And if they were lucky, unwanted Regalia, magical artifacts sought after by The Mids that would change their fortunes once sold.

Passing by The Well, Tim always heard the weak sounds of weeping even when there were none. A sound etched into the wrinkles of his brain six years ago when he first met Mia. Body half-burnt. Bones shattered. On the verge of death, but crying, clinging to life. Surviving an impossible fall from The Surface, only to be stepped over by the locals who only cared to look for anything of value.

She was worth less than garbage.

Maybe that’s why she’s a neat freak. Tim thought to himself, tending to the garden in his backyard. On the outside, his house seemed slightly better than the rest of the shacks lined up right beside The Well. But inside, it was spotless. Through the taped window at the back of his house, he kept an eye on Mia, sweeping, dusting, ridding the dining room of any filth that dared to step inside. What was supposed to be punishment seemed to be having the opposite effect. But that wasn’t the only thing that worried him. And it wasn’t her murderous, psychopathic tendencies either.

It dawned on the drunkard that she had not aged one bit. Surface-Dwellers stopped aging at 18. And unless they were Exiled, they would live forever, barring specific, unlikely scenarios. Yet, Mia had been stuck in her eight-year-old body ever since he knew her. When in fact, she should be 14.

Focusing his vision, Tim saw through her flesh. His house and the world around it faded into darkness, leaving behind only vague shapes and outlines of the surrounding structure. Greeting him was a tiny, transparent dot inside Mia. The shape of her soul. White light danced around the colorless orb like moths to a lantern. Below it was a sea of red, waves crashing back and forth. For most children from The Surface, that sea would just be a pond. And blue.

But most children did not kill hundreds of humans.

Regardless, she was still just a child. And if she could make it to The Surface in time, she could, in theory, obtain her immortality. But why would he ever give her that curse?

“I’m done!”

Lost in his thoughts, Tim was taken aback when Mia popped up right in front of him. She was shining, sweat glistening down her forehead, smile brighter than Dayfall itself. He almost missed the dirt all over her dress and the dust in her gray ponytailed hair from the pride she radiated.

“Can I go now?” she asked.

“Looking like that?”

“Oh.”

Noticing the filth that got on her, she turned red, much like the tomatoes Tim was planting. It didn’t last long as she shapeshifted back to her usual self. Dirt and grime were gone. Not a speck was left on her. An awfully convenient Gift.

“Can I go now?” she asked, tone identical to the last.

“Mia, we need to talk.”

Her face scrunched. “But I already told you! They were bad guys!” Stomping her foot, she pointed angrily in the direction of the bar. “You’re just mad because you can’t quit drinking. Hmph!”

“That’s not it,” he said. Stressed, he took out a cigarette and his lighter out of reflex, but immediately kept them back inside when he remembered he was in the presence of the child.

“And if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten your lighter back.” The little lawyer inside of her was already building on her case. She was definitely a teenager, alright.

“Come, sit.”

He gestured at the step stool beside him, one of many lined up in front of each of his plants. Sitting down, her elbows dug into her knees as she rested her cheeks against her palms. A defiant pout.

“You’re not getting any bigger.”

“I can. Anytime I want to.”

“You can’t keep being a kid forever.”

“But I can! Last time, you said ‘be yourself,’ so now I AM being myself. You don’t understand!”

Tim rubbed his temples. Gone were the days when Mia was a sweet, obedient angel. And like the angel she was, all she ever did was punish evildoers. Still sweet, but now she was rebellious.

“Look, girls your age—they get worried about their bodies, they start thinking about boys, they want to make friends—”

“But I don’t need friends. I have you.”

Tim flinched, clenching his chest. Those sweet words came out of nowhere. He could not regenerate from that critical hit.

“Look,” he sighed. “Mia, I don’t want you spending the rest of your life in this dump.”

The girl had a confused look on her face. Despite all the death and poverty, she loved Pitstop from the bottom of her heart. Sure, it was broken and dirty, but there was a lot of cleaning to be done.

“But I want to kill bad guys. This place has a lot of bad guys.”

“What I mean is, what do you want to be when you grow up? Surely, you wanna be somebody, right? A lawyer, engineer, you know, those kinds of jobs people have in The Mids?”

“Oh.”

“But no doctor! Medicine’s not worth it.”

She thought hard. Really pondered for a bit. Then she lit up like a light bulb.

“I want to be a bounty hunter to kill bad guys!”

“Mia, half of the bounties on the bounty wall are all you! You’ve been killing people for six years. Six years, Mia. Don’t you think, maybe, just maybe, it just isn’t… working out?”

“It is! Last time, the bad guys were scared because I just killed them. Now, they’re scared AND confused! They don’t know I’m making them kill each other, too!”

“That’s not the point. Every time you kill one, another just takes its place. Nothing changes. Haven’t you realized it by now?”

Mia sulked. The old geezer was being difficult, just like all the adults in town. They cleaned their house every day, even though they knew it would just get dirty again. How was that so different from her exterminating the filth from the town?

She looked away, frustrated. “You’re being a hypocrite. You killed a lot of people, too.”

“And look where that led me. A deadbeat drunk with no job, no life. Nothing!” Tim heaved, anger flaring not at her, but at himself. He realized too late that he was standing up from his seat, veins popping out from his neck. He had raised his voice at the girl, something he swore he’d never do.

Yet, Mia reached out to his hand, frightened as she was. Her tiny hand clutched onto his. She didn’t know why, but she knew he was hurting inside. It was why, even though she knew the real source of evil came from elsewhere, she couldn’t bear to leave him alone. Not like this.

Cursing inside, Tim sighed, got down to her eye level, and tried to reassure her. But the words just couldn’t seem to come out right. Taking the bits and pieces stuck in his throat, he tried his best to express himself.

“You’re still young. I just… I don’t want you to end up like me, okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded. “I won’t go out today. You can go drinking, Dad, I won’t get mad. I’ll do my homework this time.”

“Let’s do it together.”

Mia beamed, concern evaporating from her face. Despite all his flaws, she loved spending time with her dad. Outside, where she was always walking in someone else’s skin, she had to act and behave a certain way. If not, they’ll see through her disguise. But at home, with him, she could truly be comfortable in her own skin. Sure, it pained her to see him go out so often, and it still did, but she knew he needed space.

If anything, she knew it was the other way around for her adoptive father. Outside, he could let loose, get hammered, and do whatever the hell he wanted. But with her, she could tell he was always trying his best to be patient and kind. There were no bottles at home. Cigarette stench nonexistent. To others, he was a loser. But in her eyes, she was the best Dad she could ever ask for.

Her real parents could rot in hell for all she cared.

“Mia. Hey Mia, focus. You’re spacing out again.” He snapped her back to the present, tapping on the worn-out activity book on the table in front of her. There was no school in Pitstop, so all of Mia’s education was scavenged from The Wishing Well, a fact made evident by the eraser marks on the pages. The previous owner’s work could still barely be made out, even after Tim spent hours erasing all the answers he could find.

“Sorry,” Mia replied with a blank look. “Just thinking about two people I wanted to kill.”

“Well, you could kill them AFTER you solve this question.”

It was the final question in a section about the Rite of Immortality. Being open-ended, it asked the student to explain how swearing fealty to the king would grant them everlasting life. The textbook answer was that a Mana Contract would bind the lives of the subject and their ruler together. But the truth wasn’t that convenient.

“Can I ask you something?” Mia asked.

Tim lit up, excited that she was starting to ask more questions instead of always going for the answer. “Sure, fire away.”

“How do you kill an Immortal?”

“That’s… not part of the syllabus.”

“They would just get back up after you shoot them,” Mia wondered aloud.

“Yeah, that’s why I keep telling you to stop using guns for everything. Bullets aren’t cheap, you know.”

“Hey, I’m using more knives now,” she reasoned. “And the bullets I use are from the bad guys.”

“Wonderful. But that’s not answering the question.”

“So how do you kill an Immortal?”

“That’s not the question!”

Cupping his face and looking at the ceiling, Tim groaned, frustration seeping between his fingers. If only that girl could stop thinking about murder for five seconds, maybe he could finally reintegrate her into normal human society.

“If I keep them in a box, fill it with water, they would just drown again and again, but that’s still not killing them…”

He could hardly believe how she accurately described an actual method of Immortal torture.

“... And if I make them go ‘splat’ until there’s nothing left, they’d still regenerate from the blood on the floor.”

“Please just write down your answer.”

“I know!” Mia got up, triumphant from arriving at her solution. “We just need to kill the king!”

“You’re not. Killing. The king. And what do you mean, ‘we’? I’m not going anywhere!”

“There’s no need to!” Excitedly, Mia ran over to Tim, holding onto his arms and shaking them.

“The Rite of Immortality only works on The Surface, right? If I bring him down here, I could kill the king. That would void the Mana Contract and make everyone mortal again!”

“They would just get another king.”

“Oh.”

“Look, young lady, every nation under The Surface has tried to kill the king at least once. Alright? It never works.”

Mia sat back down, dejected. Those Immortals were worse than cockroaches. They never got old. Never stayed dead. Her mind played back all the different ways she executed criminals, but none of them would work on an Immortal.

But something in her head clicked. She understood now; she had gone about it the wrong way this entire time.

“Dad,” she uttered, voice wavering more than usual.

Dreading her next hypothesis, Tim asked, “What is it?”

“Remember when you asked me what I wanna be when I grow up?”

“A bounty hunter.”

Mia shook her head. “I know what I want to be now.”

Slowly, she got up from her seat once more. Flicking her thumb out and sticking it to her chest, she declared:

“I’m going to be King of the Immortals!”

Tim died a little inside that day.