Emptiness

“……. As we have studied about our beautiful world in our previous class, we’re going to see about the classification of people in today’s class. But before that, I’m going to question you all about what we have discussed yesterday. Are you guys ready?” The teacher looked around the classroom when he was met with silence. He shouldn’t have expected anything else. He then decided to call a student in the back row, “What is the name of our world?” “Vabeo, sir.” He then called out another student at random, “How many moons are orbiting our planet?” “Della and Niten, sir.” “Good. Now tell me about their history.” As the student he called was refusing to meet his eyes, lowering her neck in shame of not knowing the answer in front of her fellow students, he decided to go easy on her as he knew how much capacity six-year children had in general. “Sit down, you two, and listen carefully, as I am not going to repeat this. Our planet Vabeo is orbiting a star called Mercos - God of Light, who was jealous of the love Della and Niten had for each other and decided to push them apart, but our planet Vabeo, a kind God, decided to shelter them. Grateful to Vabeo, Della and Niten decided to orbit around our planet Vabeo and providing light during the nighttime in return for Vabeo’s kindness and protection. Do you all understand now?” There was a chorus of “Yes, sir.” The teacher chuckled to himself, knowing that some wouldn’t remember this tomorrow too. He decided to start today’s lesson without wasting time on yesterday’s topic. He leaned his weight a little on the wall and looked over his students. This made everyone silent instantly, knowing how strict he was during lesson times. “We are going to see the classification of people in our world. Does anyone here know who has the highest authority in our world?” “The king.” Most of the students shouted the answer, wanting to impress the teacher as this was a very simple question. He cleared his throat so they would all quiet down. After a second, he continued, “Yes, you’re all right. A king rules his nation just like our own nation. Now, before seeing how people are divided, we’re going to see about how and based on what they are divided.” He brought his hands as if praying and closed his eyes to concentrate; after a few seconds, he opened his hands, and the small images of small plants to little birds popped out of his hands and spread out over the entire classroom. He could not help but accept the fact that his students were cute with their widened eyes full of awe and wonder. “How is it possible for me to create images like this? How is it possible for a plant to grow into a tree in a week? How a bird that is heavier than a horse can fly? How our planet is protecting its moon, Della and Niten?” His students were speechless in awe of the images floating around the classroom. “The answer is EGAV…. Energy Given Away by Vabeo. This amazing and wonderful Egav gifted to humans by Vabeo decides a person’s class. There is a common limit to a person’s Egav called Linia, which indicates a 10m radius. The people with perfect Linia are called Moyen, who all work in the palace and the army. People who have Egav lower than Linia are not considered eligible to work in the army and are called Imus, the lower class people. Imus people’s works range from construction to gardening. And at last, a very rare Linia limit called Gigan, an abnormal and huge radius that doesn’t have a fixed range, which can only be found rarely in the royal family.” He clapped his hands in irritation, and the floating images disappeared, as the children were not listening to him completely and whispering about the images. “Now, note it in your notebooks.” With that, he wrote it on the wall behind with his finger, flaring up Egav on his fingertip with precise control. The common limit was a 10m radius which was called Linia. Perfect Linia = Moyen Lesser than Linia = Imus Greater than Linia = Heger Abnormally greater than Linia = Gigan He turned towards his students and checked if everyone was noting it down. Suddenly, a hand was raised in the air, and he recognized that it belonged to a troublesome student of his. “What is it, Rado?” “Sir, what about the people who don’t have Egav?” Just then, he heard a noise; he turned towards the window to see the damned child listening to his class again. The students who were all used to seeing their kind teacher were now looking at him, yelling and running out of the classroom to chase a child. He should have known that the bad blood would only bring bad blood. He shouldn’t have just left it with a warning to them. He would show them what being disrespectful to a Linia means. He summoned Egav and willed it to form a rope, targeting the demon child. He gritted his teeth as it took a while to catch this degradable lowlife. He dragged his capture to the garbage not before gagging it as he was not in the mood to hear its voice. Every city had a place called garbage, where people with no Egav – people who were abandoned by Vabeo lived. He didn’t want to step into this place full of garbage, but if he left this now, who knows what would happen in the future. With disgust, he found the boy’s house and took pleasure in how the lowlifes lowered their heads in front of him, giving him the respect of being a Linia, and begged him to let the child go. After what might be half an hour, thoroughly warning them that none of the lowlifes had the right to education. “This would be the final warning. I’ve caught him five times now, and if this happens again, I will hand him over to the authorities. You know what happens to lowlifes who are handed over to the authorities.” With that, he sneered at them one last time and turned away, not caring about the crowd behind him. Cora, the mother of the child, turned towards the people and begged for their forgiveness as it brought trouble to their Garbage. She cursed herself internally for being born a lowlife in this Vabeo. Laner, the head of the lowlifes, warned Cora not to let her child out for weeks and departed from there, casting a final warning look at them. Cora couldn’t believe the audacity of the child, who didn’t even shed a tear during all these things and stood there without even apologizing. Not able to control her anger anymore, she barked at her younger children to go inside and dragged her elder child Solum, the person who ruined her life inside. She locked her door tightly, not bothering about being gentle about it. Usually, she scolded anyone who locked the door forcefully because she had spent most of her fortune two years ago to buy a strong door, which was unusual for lowlifes like them. As her husband passed away four years back, it was getting harder to live, and the safety of her and their home was in question. Being a low-life was hard, and being a woman, especially a widowed woman, and providing for three children was getting harder for her. To top it all, her elder child, the bane of her existence, Solum, was looking at her with his black eyes, raising her temper to another level. Solum lifted his hands to cover his face, knowing very well what was going to happen. He was used to it anyway. He fell on the floor from the force of the hit. Maybe his mother was furious today, more than usual, with the way she was hitting him and throwing things at him all the while yelling. Why were you born, Solum? You are the reason I’m like this today. Why did you cause your father’s death? Why won’t you even speak? Why can’t you be like your siblings, you demon child? Why won’t you just die? Blah Blah Blah… The usual. Solum didn’t shed any tears, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t hurt or angry. Of course, it hurt. Every beating hurt physically. But the words had stopped hurting him emotionally long before. His father, Bert, had passed away, saving him while he was five. Five years had passed since then, yet his mother still blamed him for his father’s death. Bert has been not just her husband but his father too. The kindest man Solum had ever met. It was so fun and happy when his father was alive, but now things have changed. He was getting tired of his mother’s constant disappointment while praising his siblings, Leo and Eli. They don’t see life the way he did. How could anyone just live like a lowlife? This society blamed them for their birth, for not having Egav; how could anyone accept things like that? How could anyone accept being stepped upon constantly? Vabeo was so large and vast. It belonged to everyone equally, then why deny people like them alone? Why were they named as lowlifes? Why was their living place called Garbage? Why? Like any ten-year-old, he was just as curious about the world as everybody else. He didn’t know why people didn’t understand. Why live at all if you are treated like this? His mother told him to stay down, look down, not to question anything otherwise; he would be killed. It was better to be dead than living like this. It was of no use anyway to say these things aloud. None of the lowlifes understood, nor did his mom. So he had stopped speaking to his mother, yet that only seemed to anger her even more. He knew that his siblings were favored by his mom only because they went along with her, unlike him. He cannot live like this. He didn’t want to listen to the teacher explaining about people who didn’t have any Egav. That was why he turned to leave and was spotted by the stupid teacher. Solum sighed in relief when his mother finally went away but soon regretted it as his ribs hurt worse than before. He knew he could not risk going outside, at least for a while. He decided to curl around and lay down as it seemed he could not get up with how much it all hurt. Familiar blackness claimed him after a few minutes, and he welcomed it, knowing that it was the only comfort in his life while his wounds bled and soaked the rug underneath.