"Alexander!" came a yell from downstairs.
Shivering, his whole body aching and having a fever, he lay there on the soft bed, his small frame pale, bloodless, and unhealthy; covered in a luxury blanket.
"Alexander!" the yell came again.
He weakly opened his eyes, and the yells stopped. He smiled mirthlessly, he was already tired of this, "Ahh…I hope I die of this fever." He weakly moaned.
He was a 12-year-old kid, he was an orphaned child.
His parents had died the last summer, a year or so ago — the news said their car had collided with a truck. And since the first day of their death, every time he woke up… he could hear his mom calling for him from downstairs.
Yet waking up, walking towards the doorway groggily, only to see his luxurious apartment empty and devoid of life…he had had enough.
Nevertheless, even this time's fever was unforgiving, it didn't kill him either.
Sitting up tiredly, he looked at the wall, the rainy night outside, the dark room, and the shining monitor of his computer. 'Ah, I forgot to turn it off!' weakly exclaiming to himself, he stood up, fever be damned, he would never let that computer be destroyed due to some rain and thunder.
Boom! A passing thunder brightened the room.
He gently unplugged the computer, and about to turn around to hit the bed, he froze — the monitor… it hadn't turned off.
It was bright.
…
"So Young Lady Apathy, I will now begin your initiation ceremony into Wuma," an old lady wearing a traditional white robe said with a smile.
Apathy nodded back, her black hair tied in a bun and wearing royal robes, today was her 7th birthday; she was way early compared to her friends in becoming a Wuma.
"What do I have to do to become a Wuma, Lady Oha," she asked innocently.
Oha smiled and said, her blue eyes shining: "There are two ways you can become a Wuma, one by drinking the blood of your predecessors, the other by eating the World Bead of a predecessor. But never do it the first way, that is a way we use on servants, since anyone except glues who do it that way… become the predecessor's slave."
"Oh…I won't do that then." Apathy nodded.
Smiling, Oha took out a pearl from inside her sleeves.
"So beautiful," Apathy exclaimed, her heart rate quickening.
It was a beautiful pearl with golden threads moving around inside its glassy confines.
"This…my child, is a World Bead, and every Wuma…"
…
Alexander huddled into a corner of the room and looked at the monitor, his face slack with fear, absolute fear.
At first, he was startled by the things on the screen, but now, he was truly afraid.
They were just a bunch of words, English words, bunched together to make up a story.
The story of a couple who died hit by a truck.
The story of their child.
The story of how the child will be killed soon too.
His tears start to come down again, he started to cry, and the image of his parents' smiles flashed past in his head. With a breaking voice, "No…I don't wanna die," he wept, huddled in the darkness of his lonely room.
He was a smart child, by now, he knew why there was no orphanage or authorities that came to take care of him even after months, there were people who wanted to kill his parents, and now they wanted to kill him too.
He had known that for about a year now.
And since then, he had never talked with anybody, he did not want to put more people at risk.
And thus, a year had gone by, living in fear and uncertainty, everyday eating food that a delivery boy came to drop off…
Why hadn't he come for the last 3 days?
…
"Ah, look at her cute blue eyes," Apathy's Mother pinched her cheeks and exclaimed, excited.
Oha nodded from the side, a smile on her aged face.
"Humph," harrumphing cutely, Apathy threw a side eye at her mother and said: "this is nothing, Mom, just you wait, I will also become a Totem Warrior like you soon."
Her Mother, A Woman covered in tattoos below her neck, raised her eyebrows and chuckled, "I will wait, then."
"You better, Humph," Apathy cutely bubbled and then started to tell her Mom how good it felt to become a Wuma and see the insides of the world bead for the first time…
And how amazing it felt to have an eye that could see in the night.