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Interlude 1: Shining Arrow
🕑 Added 2024-06-21 18:20:16 +0000 UTC"Mom, I'm going to school. See you." I waved goodbye to my mom, who laid down watching TV lazily all day on the floor. She waved back absentmindedly, her eyes vacant and glued to the screen. Ever since my dad died, she became so estranged. My dad wasn't anything special. He worked a typical job as a janitor at Shirayuki Group but died of a heart attack. My older brother lounged on the floor behind her, equally disengaged.
Mom tried to find work soon after but to no avail. She didn't have any particular talents and eventually gave up, idling at home. Thankfully, we lived in Eden, not the old world. We didn't become homeless when we couldn't pay the bills. We were sent to a shelter. There, Mom received welfare money of about 300 credits per month, just enough for us to feed ourselves.
As I walked outside, I saw a lot of people sitting on the sides of the streets, doing nothing. They sat there with lifeless eyes, staring at the sky. They were some of the unlucky ones. Unlike my mom, who had me and my brother, bachelors without parents were usually given more cramped rooms, barely 2x2 meters wide. Eden was supposed to be a utopia; people said the conditions here were better than in the old world, but the scene before me contradicted that.
A flying seinjet ambulance passed over my head. "It's the fifth time this month," I muttered as fear gripped me. A seinjet coming without any anathema warning meant one thing: someone had committed suicide in our neighborhood. Two months ago, a man in his mid-twenties jumped from a building. He lived three buildings away from us. When I asked around, the police said the likely cause was his computer breaking down and not having the money to replace it. Fear gripped me then. I don't play games that much, but my brother seems to value his phone more than his life too. The sense of losing such a thing was enough for a person to commit suicide. That fact sent shivers down my spine.
I tried hard to ignore the flying ambulance and waited at the parking lot. The tube train then arrived, bringing me and a group of lifeless zombies to school. The school was controlled by Shirayuki and BumperHarvest Corp., so most of the students were not from jobless parents like mine. However, schools had to admit everyone if there were still empty seats. My now-deceased dad worked for Shirayuki, so I got a seat in this school.
"Good. Study hard, and you might get a good job when you're an adult," the security guard smiled as we stepped down from the tube train and into the school.
"Look. The shelter pets are coming," a whisper loud enough to reach my ears. I sat down and opened my notebook. Even though millions of people who lived in the shelters with possibly thousands of children didn't come to school, unlike them and unlike my brother, I still kept coming to school. Fear gripped me to keep coming here. To cling to the smallest speck of hope. To be freed from despair inside the shelter. We are alive but we didn't actually live.
"Ah! Yuri!"
"Yuri-sama!"
"Please, don't call me Yuri-sama. I am not a princess, you know. Come on, let's sit down. School will begin shortly." I looked at the enviable Yuri Shirayuki. She had everything: money, talent, and even status.
"Hey! Could you trade seats? I want to sit beside Yuri." One of her friends talked me out.
"Stop that, Nein. No harassing in school." Yuri smiled at me and nodded. Even her behavior was nice. After taking a deep breath twice, I buried all envy and dark feelings within my heart and opened up my books. Most students didn't have books or notebooks anymore; they used AR Gear or tablets. However, I didn't have the money to buy them. So, I had to stick to notebooks. I ignored the whispers calling me a caveman and continued to take notes on whatever the teacher explained.
However, trouble came when both of my pens betrayed me and chose that moment to run out of ink. I started to sweat. I calmed myself down, trying to reassure myself that I would still be fine even if I missed this lesson. But as the teacher started giving us homework, I almost cried. School ended without me learning anything.
"Here," Yuri said, handing me an elegant black book before quickly leaving, depriving me of the chance to respond. The exchange was so fast that it eluded her friends in the distance. After opening it, I saw she had taken down notes in her notebook and given it to me. Anger flared up within me, but I held myself back from throwing the book.
I then went to the bathroom, trying to wash my face. However, as I was passing by, I glared at Yuri.
"Why did you give me the book?"
"I thought you needed it; that's why I gave it to you."
"Alms for the poor, huh? You think I need your pity?" I sarcastically demeaned her, but her response was steady, almost mechanical.
"No. That is not my intention. I wish for you to succeed. Since I can help you, I did."
"You!" I raised the book, almost ready to throw it at her. However, when we locked eyes, her gaze was empty. It stunned me, and I forgot why I was even angry at her.
"If you don't need it, that's fine. Sorry for intruding. I did not intend to make you angry." She smiled and bowed politely, but her eyes remained hollow. Then she blinked, and her eyes turned sweeter, just like the ones I usually saw during classes. It came as a sudden revelation that everything about her was a facade.
I couldn't sleep that night. In the end, her notes helped a lot. My envy toward her had gone with the wind. It left me pondering how a girl with such talent, wealth, and status could have the same dead eyes as the people in the shelter. My passion for marching on to get a job waned as I wondered if I had made the right choice.
"Mom, you used to work in the kitchen sometimes, right? Why don't you open up a restaurant?"
"Hm? Useless. We don't have money to buy ingredients. Even if we saved up, people wouldn't buy it. My cooking isn't as good as a real chef's with specialized tools." Mom had tried and failed. Then, she never tried again. My brother had it worse; he wasn't even given a chance.
"I see."
"Only foolish people try the same thing expecting different results. I was foolish too. Better not to try at all," my brother said as he played a game on his phone on the floor. He smirked, "If only I could become a guardian. Eheheh, I'd fuck up those anathemas like in this Magical Girl Rebellion game. I'm already level 60! Max level. F2P, by the way."
"Keep dreaming. Don't die now; we won't have enough money to buy coffins."
"We don't use cemeteries in Eden anymore. It's sea burial. We'll become fish food."
"I just Googled it. It's free; that's a good thing."
At that moment, I no longer viewed them with hate or fear, but pity. The next day, Yuri didn't ask for her book back. She gave both the book and the attached pen to me as a set. Her smile was as radiant as ever. But, if you scrutinized it closely, her eyes sometimes returned to the lifeless look I saw in the bathroom.
"Why are you staring at me, Miss Alice?"
"Ah, nothing, Miss Yuri. I just wondered if you were really okay with giving me your book."
"It's fine. I barely used it after all. It's a pity for tools not to be used."
"I see. Thank you. I managed to do the homework thanks to you." I politely bowed to her.
"You're welcome," she replied, her answers banal.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Yuri transferred out of our school. She was to be relocated to a frontier city where the dangers of Anathema lurked at every corner. Anathema had become a symbol of fear. But it was also a symbol of hope for us. Many of us dreamed of killing Anathema as Guardians. However, during incursions, those who dared to confront them inevitably died, becoming nourishment for the monsters. Due to deep-rooted jealousy towards Magical Guardians, MGs rarely patrolled here.
Days passed by. Without Yuri, my days felt dull and empty. Despite her wealth, she rarely discriminated against me, and she stopped any bullying. She was such a perfect human. Without her, I had to rely on teachers for protection. Bullying was rare, but it existed.
Her behavior was not unique per se, but rare enough to earn my respect. One day, out of nowhere, a dirty dog approached me after I bought a hotdog. The dog looked at me as I devoured my meal. After it got kicked by a random passerby when it asked for food, it came to me. Pitying it, I gave it my half-eaten hotdog. Meat was rare in our diet as meat culture farming was not as efficient as vertical farming, making it more expensive. I had to save quite a bit from my allowance to buy this.
As the dog bit into and ate the hotdog, it lay flat on the ground. If even animals felt despair in this place, then I couldn't leave it as it was. I needed to make a change somehow.
"Is it tasty? We can still eat meat. I heard even the rich still ate the same food source, you know. We should be grateful!" I gave a dry laugh. The dog then barked at me and pointed toward Pink Heart's poster plastered on a nearby wall.
"Magical Girls, huh? I want to talk to Zenith. I want to change this place. This place is full of… helplessness. We have food, we have shelters, even though it is not much, we even have money. And yet, why… why is it so torturous?" Tears started to flow from my eyes.
"I see. Want to become a Magical Girl, Alice?"
"Eh?" I blanked out at the talking dog. The dirty dog actually talked.
"I believe the reason for their despair is that they have no purpose. By becoming a Magical Girl, you can give them purpose."
"I see. Purpose, huh?"
"So, do you want to become a Magical Girl?" His question was a revelation to me. Suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do.
"Yes. You are correct. People needed a purpose in life. If becoming a Magical Girl can give them purpose, I will do it. Let us bring hope to these people!" I said to the dog.
Our journey as Magical Guardians begins!
