CHAPTER 2— The strong and the weak

They sat down together at the very bottom of the dark stairs, huddling close.Their backs pressed against the damp stone wall, knees drawn tightly up to their chests. Each curled into themselves, as if making their bodies smaller could somehow protect them from the horrific reality they had just been thrown into.Soren was the first to lift his head."What are we gonna do, big sis?"His voice held steady through the first part, but it cracked completely by the end."What are we gonna become?"The tears came on their own, spilling over his cheeks.Lya pulled him tightly into her arms before he could even finish his sentence. She ran her hand through his hair, again and again—that instinctive, gentle gesture people make when they have absolutely nothing left to offer but comfort."Everything's gonna be okay. I promise, Soren," she said softly.She had absolutely no idea if that was true.She kept stroking his head in the darkness. After a while, she noticed that he had stopped moving. He had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion.She looked down at him. His mouth was slightly open, his small fist still clenched around a fold of her oversized T-shirt. He was only eleven years old. Lya smiled faintly despite the horror, but the smile quickly faded, and her thoughts began to spin.How are we going to get out of here?The town square she had seen through the trapdoor was about a kilometer from the old temple. The old temple sat right near the village exit. Therefore, the exit was technically within reach. But with those monstrous things roaming outside, making a run for it was suicide.There was absolutely no way.She bit her lip. Hard. Hard enough to taste the sharp metallic tang of blood.What's the point of having these eyes, damn it? I'm a Star.I should be stronger. I should be able to protect my brother from anything—a monster, a man, even a single judgmental look. That's exactly why people like me are born with this symbol. And yet, here I am, just one kilometer from safety, unable to even move ten meters.And that's when a memory of their kitchen suddenly came back to her.She had been much younger back then. She was sitting on a wooden chair that was far too tall, her small feet dangling helplessly above the floor.Her mother was washing dishes with her back turned to the room. Her father was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper while secretly eating a slice of pie—an indulgence strictly forbidden by her mother, and therefore practiced daily by her father."Mom? Why are we all Stars, but Soren is the only one without a symbol?" Lya had asked out of nowhere.Her mother didn't stop scrubbing the plate."That's an excellent question, princess. Ask your father.""Huh?" Her father looked up sharply from his newspaper. "Why are you throwing that heavy one at me, sweetheart?"Her mother simply turned her head and narrowed her eyes at him. It lasted for barely one-tenth of a second."Okay, okay..." her father muttered, raising his hands in defeat.He put the newspaper down, adopting the exact expression he always wore when he was about to say something deeply serious while trying to maintain a playful smile."You know, sweetheart, not everyone is born equal. Everyone is born different. We have different symbols that determine our social status from the moment of our birth. Some people are born rich, others poor. Some are born perfectly healthy, while others have illnesses that keep them bedridden for their entire lives. Life makes all of us unequal from the very beginning."He took another quick bite of pie."Hmph. And there are still idiots who think we're all born equal. Privileged people who genuinely believe they built themselves up from nothing. What a joke."Her mother crossed the kitchen in a flash and smacked him right on the back of the head."Ow!""Don't tell our daughter things like that! You're going to put terrible ideas in her head."But Lya, sitting proudly on her too-tall chair, had proudly declared:"We're not born equal, and fuck the privileged people who think otherwise!"An immediate silence fell over the room.Her mother slowly turned her gaze toward her husband."See?!""But is she wrong? Ahahahah!" He burst out laughing. Coughing slightly, he took a quick drink of water to recover. "Anyway. Lya."He leaned forward, placing a warm hand gently on her head."The strong must always help the weak. So, as someone who was born privileged with those eyes, you have to protect your brother. Okay?"Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open.Soren walked in to grab a piece of fruit from the basket. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the three of them frozen in place, staring at them in total confusion."Uh... is something wrong?"Their father panicked instantly."Huh? Something wrong? No, no, no, no—"In his haste, he accidentally threw Lya straight toward Soren."Waaaaah—?!"She crashed hard into her little brother. They both went tumbling backward, tangled up onto the kitchen floor."Darling, why on earth did you do that?!" her mother shrieked."I mixed up two actions! I meant to throw a fruit to Soren and look at Lya!"Back in the dark tunnel, Lya snorted with sudden laughter.The ridiculous memory made her feel immensely better.No. This is not the time to get discouraged.Dad. Mom.I will become strong enough to protect Soren. I promise you.They ended up staying hidden in that tunnel for two full days.Two days spent talking about everything and nothing, because that is the only thing you can possibly do when you are completely helpless. Lya told her brother every stupid thought that crossed her mind. The plots of the books she had read. Gossip about the neighbors. The time he had accidentally eaten a bar of soap because he thought it was a block of cheese.By the end of the second day, he was laughing genuinely."Ahahaha. I know you're doing all this just to keep my spirits up. And I appreciate it.""Hm? What are you talking about?" Lya said, trying to look innocent."Stop pretending." Soren shrugged with a small smile. "Still, I'm starving. It's been almost two days. Could you check if there are still any monsters out there?""Sure. I'll take a quick look."She climbed back up the steps and carefully lifted the heavy trapdoor.Nothing was moving anymore.The area was completely littered with the massive corpses of the creatures.Huh?She stayed there for a long moment, the wooden trapdoor resting heavily against her shoulder, staring at the carcasses collapsed over one another.Did they end up destroying and eating each other?Either way, this is our lucky break.She hurried back down the stairs, looking at her brother with a bright smile she hadn't shown in two days."Soren. We can go."We were running as fast as our legs could carry us toward the village exit when, all of a sudden, a stray monster surged out of nowhere.The beast's charge separated us instantly.I ran to find help. I couldn't leave my little brother alone in the chaos, so I sprinted toward the main exit, because that was the only direction reinforcements could come from. Because it was the only logical thing I could do.And when I finally reached the perimeter, I understood exactly why there were so many monster corpses back in the square.The Defense Faction had finally arrived.There were military uniforms everywhere. Strict orders were being shouted and repeated from one end of the square to the other. The few survivors they had managed to pull out of the rubble were gathered inside the old stone temple, sitting in neat rows with heavy blankets over their shoulders, staring blankly into space.I grabbed the very first soldier I saw. I begged him through a flood of tears to go back into the ruins and find my brother.He nodded and agreed. He ran off into the smoke.I stayed behind, sitting on the stone steps in front of the temple, waiting.Around me, the older survivors talked quietly among themselves. They didn't pay much attention to me; I was just another shocked kid sitting on a step.I overheard one of the passing soldiers complain about being deployed to some "godforsaken backwater."I kept my head held low.Why did they have to arrive two full days late? If they had come earlier, maybe my parents would still be alive. Maybe our entire village would still be standing."This village full of recluses should have been wiped out anyway. The vice-captain is far too soft," another voice muttered.My head stayed lowered. But inside, my blood was boiling.And my father's voice kept playing over and over in a loop inside my mind: “The strong must always help the weak.”Oh. Right.What could I possibly expect from this society? A society deeply discriminatory toward the Symbol-less—or, as the elites so affectionately call them: trash.There was already so much systemic hatred between the registered symbols themselves. Circles and Squares were constantly looked down on by Crosses, Xs, and Stars. And all of them eventually found a common enemy. One defenseless group at the absolute bottom, the one everyone could dump the rest of their collective hatred onto.There was a precise psychological concept for that.Oh, right. The scapegoat mechanism. At least all that extensive reading was finally doing something useful for me.I raised my head proudly. I looked at the smoking ruins of what remained of my home.Collapsed roofs. Pillars of thick black smoke still rising into the grey sky. And I thought about the people who had lived there, because our village was mostly made up of Symbol-less outcasts. That was our sanctuary. That's why it was built so far away from civilization.And despite having no markings, we were a real family.If I want to protect my brother... If I want to protect everyone who suffers the same horrific injustice because of their ocular classification...Then I have no choice. I have to aim for the absolute highest title of power.I have to become the Omni-Astre.A dark, unhinged smile appeared on my face at that exact moment, stretching my features into a grotesque, twisted expression reminiscent of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream.I didn't know what that smile looked like to others. I only know that if anyone had seen it right then, on the pale face of a young girl standing in front of a slaughtered village, they would have terrifiedly looked away."Lya!"My brother's voice broke my trance. He was running toward me, with the soldier following closely behind him.I rushed to him, throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him hard enough to crack his ribs.Then, I thanked the soldier. For a long time. Probably far too long, until the man looked visibly uncomfortable.His name was Tom, I think.He told me he had found Soren wandering near the steep cliff overlooking Lake Sight.And I was so incredibly relieved that my little brother had made it out of that nightmare alive that I didn't think to ask anything else.