I was seventeen years old. Five years had passed like one long, grey day. I was no longer a project, not even a disappointment. I had become just a servant. A shadow moving through the corridors of the orphanage.
"Hong Min," Ikumi called me that morning, her voice as cold as usual. "Go to the market. I want pork for dinner."
Pork. Her favorite food. The food I had seen being cooked and smelled for years, but had never tasted. My job was not just to be a servant, but to be a witness to the blessings I would never receive.
I took the money and walked. I crossed the stone bridge and entered the "Ever-sleeping Great Gu Street." The city was noisy, full of colors and smells that I no longer felt. People stared at my red hair as usual, whispering the word "Prometheus." I no longer cared.
I reached the butcher's shop. He knew me well. He looked at me with disdain as he cut the meat. "You Prometheus," he said with a malicious smile. "Why are you still alive? How dare you breathe?"
I looked at him with empty eyes. "Ask the world, don't ask me."
The butcher's words were like the buzzing of bees in my head. My feet didn't want to go straight back to the bridge. I turned into a side alley without thinking, just to escape the noise of the main street, and the noise in my head. I found myself wandering in an area I had never seen before. The buildings were luxurious, the alleys clean. The rich district.
I saw a gathering in a small square. A dead curiosity pushed me to see what was happening. I squeezed my way through the bodies dressed in silk and velvet.
There was a small platform, and on it stood a fat man in fancy clothes, speaking in a loud voice, presenting his rare "goods." And on the platform, she was standing.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I froze. My heart stopped beating, and the world stopped spinning. Her hair was no longer bright blonde, but completely white like snow, perhaps from years of sorrow, or from the "lesson" she had received. But her eyes... they were the same blue eyes. Empty, broken, but they were the same sky I had dreamed of.
Aline.
It was her. The sun that had been put in a golden cage to be displayed.
In that moment, as the fat man was describing her "exotic" beauty, she raised her eyes and scanned the faces of the crowd with indifference, then... she stopped. She had seen me.
Her empty eyes widened for a fleeting moment. I saw in them shock, then a flicker of something else. It wasn't love, it wasn't joy. It was recognition. She knew me. Then, I saw that recognition turn into absolute despair, into a final, decisive decision.
She gave me a very slight nod, almost imperceptible. It wasn't a greeting; it was a farewell.
Her hand moved with a speed I couldn't follow. I only saw the glint of something sharp and silver that she had hidden in the folds of her dress. A small dagger.
Before anyone could move, before any sound could come from the shocked crowd, she plunged it deep into her heart. She didn't scream.
All she did was look at me one last time, and a half-smile formed on her lips, a sad smile that never reached her eyes. Then, she collapsed onto the platform floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
A bright red spot spread across her white dress, the only real color in my grey world.
Screams erupted. Panic broke out in the crowd. But I no longer heard anything. I turned, stumbled away, and entered the first alley I found. There, I bent to my knees and vomited violently, emptying everything in my stomach and everything in my soul.
"You filth!" someone yelled, seeing me. "Get out of here!"
That final insult was the straw that broke everything. My body collapsed, and I cried.
I didn't cry for myself. I didn't cry for the insult. I cried for her. I cried for the sun that was extinguished, for the sky that was trapped in a cage, and for the freedom she had chosen in the only way left to her. I cried for five years of silence, and for all the tears I had not shed, which now burst forth like an unstoppable flood.
https://discord.gg/g38wuq4Q
