Dawn broke with the murmur of engines and distant crowds.
Tiflos opened his dry eyelids, his red eyes faintly glowing in the early haze—silent, exhausted, and stripped of everything familiar.
We walked through the city like ghosts searching for a place we no longer believed existed.
The skyscrapers—cold titans of steel—towered above us, gazing down with disdain.
The rain had washed our bodies, yes…
but it couldn't wash away the humiliation.
I caught my reflection in the window of a luxury clothing store.
Just yesterday, I looked human.
Now… I looked like someone the world had already discarded.
I exhaled sharply.
The waves do not shake the strong… and I am no longer among them.
So I turned away from the rich district I once knew and headed deeper into the narrow alleys—away from the glowing advertisement screens and toward the streets of ordinary people.
My brother Orion followed silently behind me as we entered a long street with government buildings, old hotels, and middle-class homes lining both sides.
The first hotel we passed looked cheap; even its signboard was falling apart.
But when the owner saw us, suspicion clouded his eyes.
"Are you… the sons of Minister Agabius?"
For a moment, hope flickered inside me.
If he knew our father, maybe—just maybe—he would give me work.
"Yes," I said. "I'm Tiflos. And this is my brother, Orion."
The man snorted.
"I heard you two are mentally unstable."
Mentally unstable? My ass.
Do we look like we run naked in the streets or chase children for sport?
I wanted to punch him, but he was older, built like a bull, and his eyes—like mine—were red. He could probably clean the entire floor with my face.
So I swallowed my anger and walked away, stunned.
Mentally unstable… who started that stupid rumor?
We left the shabby hotel and kept moving. Everywhere we went, we heard new words, new whispers, new poison.
Rumors spread faster than any smartphone signal.
Eventually, we reached the furniture factory Father once owned. I begged the manager for work, but he looked at me like something stuck to his shoe.
"We don't hire lunatics."
Ah.
So we had been promoted—from "mentally ill" to "official lunatics" just by walking a few hundred meters.
What would they call us if we kept going?
I glanced at Orion. His head was lowered, his shoulders trembling.
For the first time, I feared something breaking inside him.
Why wasn't I hurting the same way?
Why wasn't any of this piercing me like it should?
We kept searching.
At a nearby café, a customer pointed at Orion and whispered loudly enough for us both to hear:
"That's the crazy kid who watched his father die."
I lunged at him and punched him square in the face.
But I didn't even have time to enjoy it.
In less than a second, my legs were in the air and my cheek slammed against the floor.
The waiter—someone my age—had thrown me like I weighed nothing.
Unfair.
Completely unfair.
We were thrown out before I could even stand again.
Well, of course we were. If this is how I behave before getting hired, what would I do afterward?
The waves carry the strong…
but they drown the weak.
---
That night, under a rain-soaked bridge built over a branch of the sea in the industrial district, I lay shivering beside my sleeping brother.
My stomach cramped from hunger.
The cold gnawed at my bones.
And then—
the world changed.
The city lights stretched into colored lines of energy.
Voices turned into visible frequencies.
I could hear people's phone conversations… through the vibrations in the air.
A gift?
A curse?
Or the "waves" Father always spoke about?
As I drowned in this strange beauty, someone approached from the far end of the bridge—an old man, around seventy. His eyes were covered with worn cloth. A necklace hung from his neck with a strange carved symbol. His shirt reached halfway down his legs. His face was a battlefield of wrinkles.
He held a piece of bread.
Without a word, he sat beside me and tore it in half, offering me a piece—as if he had known the hunger twisting my stomach.
He said his name was Saeed.
His voice carried pain older than the bridge itself.
I shared our story: the betrayal, the humiliation, the rumors.
Saeed chewed slowly, then said,
"Do you know, boy? I was once like your father… one of the Silver Eyes."
"Silver Eyes?" I asked.
He nodded.
"The world is divided into four classes, forming a demon's pyramid:"
Top of the pyramid — Golden Eyes, the leaders.
They control natural energy sources, run their own schools, and rule politics and wealth.
Below them — Silver Eyes, the mid-tier powers.
Strong, but limited by time and space. Tools for the Golden. Dreamers of a ladder that doesn't exist.
Below them — Red Eyes, the soldiers.
Obedient, dangerous, hungry for power.
Always on the edge of madness.
Saeed sighed.
"And at the bottom… the drifters. Most of us are Blue Eyes—those who failed to evolve their visual power. Abandoned, exhausted, broken by training that led nowhere."
I frowned.
"But you were Silver Eyes once… like my father."
His hand trembled as he touched his necklace.
"I was, Tiflos… but not anymore. I live now on the crumbs of the powerful."
He untied the cloth around his eyes.
Two dead-white orbs stared back—cold, empty, like snow that forgot how to melt.
"This is the price of defying the system. I thought power belonged to everyone. Reality proved me wrong."
Then he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.
"Do not despair. Hardship shapes the kind of man even the darkness fears."
---
After Saeed left, my eyelids grew heavy. Somewhere between sleep and waking, shadows materialized—silent, formless.
They struck.
In an instant, Saeed was gone.
No struggle.
No sound.
Just… gone.
I sat up, heart hammering.
The spot where he had sat was empty.
The shadows vanished like they were never there.
Orion slept beside me, undisturbed.
I rose quietly, scanning my surroundings, following instinct more than reason.
But the only living soul nearby was a beggar sleeping face-down on the pavement.
I turned to leave—
and something glinted beneath the faint glow of the bridge lights.
I picked it up.
Saeed's necklace.
The symbol carved on it… the Dragon Blood Tree.
But it didn't look like a tree.
Not really.
More like a family lineage.
A mark of origin.
Will I become like him?
Blind. Broken.
Swallowed by the world's pyramid?
Or…
is there a different path waiting for me?
I returned to Orion and lay down.
The golden threads of energy reappeared—this time weaving together like a colossal web, pulsing with life.
And then I noticed something terrifying.
The waves weren't just around me anymore.
They were coming from me.
---