Shattered Blade

Hwak walked home in a daze, his mind replaying the massacre in horrifying detail. Twenty men—gone in minutes, dispatched with mechanical precision by a boy not much older than himself. The White Eyes gang members had been dangerous, armed men accustomed to violence, yet Damien had eliminated them as casually as stepping on insects.

He had seen violence before. In the settlements, gang confrontations were common enough—beatings, occasional killings, people dragged away never to return. But this had been different. Not a fight but an execution, carried out with inhuman skill by someone with empty eyes who spoke of death as a comfort.

Lost in these dark thoughts, Hwak barely registered his arrival home. The familiar scent of his father's cooking gradually pulled him back to reality—sautéed onions, the distinctive aroma of asafoetida tempered in oil, the sharp tang of fresh chilies. His mouth watered automatically. Double dal tadka—his father's signature dish and Hwak's favorite meal.

Though he'd never eaten in a proper restaurant, Hwak couldn't imagine any food tasting better. This simple dish, prepared with care by his father's weathered hands, represented safety and love in a world that had just revealed itself to be even more dangerous than he'd imagined.

"Wash up, son," his father called from their tiny kitchen area. "Food's ready."

Hwak set down his bag and moved toward the washbasin. "Papa, look what I got!" he called out, his voice suddenly animated, the persona he adopted with his father automatically replacing the shell-shocked boy who had witnessed a massacre.

With his father, Hwak was always talkative, even chatty—so different from his reserved demeanor around others. His father was the one person with whom words came easily, the one relationship where he knew his place and role without question.

His father turned, wiping his hands on a worn cloth. His eyes widened at the sight of the academy bodysuit Hwak held up.

"What's this?" he asked, stepping closer to examine the high-tech fabric. "Look how it shines in the light! And there—your name right on it." His calloused fingers traced the letters embroidered across the chest. "Hwak. It suits you well."

After examining it a moment longer, he nodded. "Go hang it up carefully. Don't want to damage something so fine."

Hwak carefully placed the suit in their small closet, then went to wash. The water was cool against his skin, and he scrubbed harder than usual, as though trying to remove the invisible bloodstains from witnessing Damien's carnage.

When he returned, his father had set out two plates on their small table. They sat together in the comfortable silence of long companionship before his father spoke again.

"How was your day? Did you make any new friends?"

The question hung between them, deceptively simple yet impossibly complex. How could Hwak explain Ramon's cruel game of "friendship"? Or Leena's unexpected kindness? Or that boy with death in his hands and emptiness in his eyes, who had somehow seen something in Hwak worth commenting on?

Hwak didn't know how to categorize these experiences. He had only read about friendship in books, each story presenting a different path to connection. His limited social interaction left him without the tools to evaluate what had happened.

So he lied for the first time to the person he loved most. "It was good. Everyone was nice."

The words tasted strange on his tongue, bitter beneath their sweetness. He didn't want to worry his father or disappoint him with tales of rejection and violence. Let him believe Neonspire was the opportunity they both hoped for, not the complex, dangerous world it was revealing itself to be.

His father chewed slowly, studying him with eyes that had seen too much of life to be easily deceived. After swallowing, he set down his spoon and leaned slightly forward.

"Let me tell you something, son," he said, his voice gentle. "In your life, you'll meet hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Some will be good, some truly terrible. Each person carries their own nature, shaped by their own struggles."

He paused, making sure Hwak was listening. "Some hide behind smiles, while others take out their frustrations on those weaker than themselves. Don't be quick to judge anyone as wholly good or bad from first impressions. Everyone deserves a chance to show their true character."

The dal steamed between them, its rich aroma filling their small home as his father continued. "You've heard people say everyone deserves two chances? Well, maybe they do. But why stop there? What if someone deserves three chances? If your heart tells you to give someone another opportunity to be better, listen to it."

His father's eyes, tired from years of labor yet still kind, met Hwak's. "Kindness is the one treasure you can give away endlessly without ever going broke. Everything else in this world costs something, but goodness? That's free to give."

He reached across the table to rest his weathered hand on Hwak's. "And remember this most of all: some people will come into your life who will value you more than you value yourself. Never betray their trust. Never step back when they need you to step forward."

The simple wisdom of his father's words washed over Hwak, more cleansing than the water he'd used to scrub his skin. In a world of Evolans and academies, of hidden powers and bloody violence, his father's perspective remained rooted in the fundamentals of human decency.

"I'll remember, Papa," Hwak promised, and this time his words held nothing but truth.

They finished their meal in comfortable silence. Hwak helped wash the dishes, the mundane activity grounding him after a day that had challenged everything he thought he knew about the world and himself.

Later, lying on his sleeping mat in the darkness, Hwak stared at the ceiling. His father's gentle breathing filled the small room, a rhythmic reminder of the simple love that had sustained him all his life.

Tomorrow he would return to Neonspire with its magnificent buildings and dangerous games. He would face Ramon's fake friendship and perhaps see Leena again. He would learn more about the strange abilities dormant within him—abilities that might one day transform him as dramatically as they had transformed the students who had used him as a target.

And somewhere in the city, Damien moved through the shadows with his empty eyes and bloodstained hands, a grim reminder that the world beyond the settlement contained powers and dangers Hwak had only begun to glimpse.

"The capacity for necessary violence," Damien had said, seeing something in Hwak that Hwak himself couldn't perceive.

What did that mean? And why did the thought simultaneously frighten and exhilarate him?

Hwak closed his eyes, letting his father's wisdom be the last thing he carried into sleep, a shield against the darkness he had witnessed and the darkness that might be growing within himself.