In a universe scorched by the ambitions of star-lords, compassion was nothing more than the remnants of a treasure that no longer held value. It was an impossible luxury, unaffordable for those born upon lands cursed by the void. In this place, a human life was cheaper than a shard of rusted metal, and hope was the deadliest of poisons. Remnant Village stood as living proof of that cruelty—a vast expanse of parched earth where desert dust clung to the skin of humans who had long since surrendered to fate.
The sun set on the horizon of Remnant Village, leaving behind fading streaks of orange over wooden roofs rotted by time. The evening breeze carried the scent of metal and dead earth, hissing through the cracks of hovel walls that looked as though they might collapse from a single blow. In the midst of that haunting silence, a young man who had just turned nineteen knelt in prostration.
He was Arlo. The father of a four-year-old boy. Though his years were still green, Arlo's shoulders had been forced to bear the weight of the world. He pressed his forehead into the barren soil, right before the polished boots of a wealthy merchant who had just crossed the village streets in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage. The merchant's silk robes reflected magnificent constellation patterns, shimmering under the twilight—a painful contrast to the tattered, patch-covered rags clinging to Arlo's body.
"Please..." Arlo's voice was hoarse, nearly drowned out by the wind. He buried the pride of his youth deep beneath the cold dust. "My son... Azril... he is only four years old. He is bright, Master. Allow him to work for you when his fingers are strong enough. Give him a life more worthy than ours—a couple who possesses nothing but a dilapidated shack and a hope that has nearly flickered out."
The merchant did not even lower his head. He merely stared at the sky, which occasionally flashed with the explosions of warships in the planet's orbit, as if the life of the young man before him was lower than the dust he stepped upon. To him, Arlo was nothing more than a speck of filth obstructing his path. "This world has no need for brilliance from the mouths of the starving," the merchant muttered as he walked away, letting the dust from his boots soil Arlo's tangled hair.
In the distance, a young woman stood frozen in front of their shack. She was Lana. She, too, was only nineteen, but her eyes had lost the spark of youth, replaced by the hollow depths of profound grief. She held Azril so tightly, as if she wanted to merge the small body into her own heart so that the coldness of the world could not reach him. Lana had given birth to Azril when she was only fifteen. While other girls might have been weaving flowers or dreaming of love, she already had to learn how to weave prayers amidst hunger for the son she loved more than her own life.
"Mother, look! The star is falling to the ground!" Azril whispered with eyes full of pure wonder, pointing toward a rift of light behind the ancient bushes at the back of their house.
Lana could only kiss the crown of her son's head, trying to stifle the sobs that tightened her chest. She felt the small bones of her child protruding due to malnutrition. "Don't go far, my son. Out there... the universe is vast and has no heart. Stay here, within the warmth of Mother's embrace."
But the universe never asks for permission to take what it desires.
As Arlo was still begging for the remnants of humanity in front of the shack, Azril slipped away from his mother's embrace, which had loosened for a moment due to the piercing ache in her soul. The boy broke into a small run toward the bushes, chasing the shimmer he thought was a miracle sent to save his family. There, among the roots of a dead ancient tree, the earth cracked open without a sound. A thin, white light crept out from the fissure in the ground like the frozen breath of an angel.
Azril stood transfixed. His round eyes reflected clusters of nebulae that crawled out like ghostly mist. "So beautiful..." he whispered, his tiny fingers reaching out, wanting to touch the glowing silence.
In the next second, reality seemed to tear. It was not a grand explosion, but an invisible yet overwhelming pull of gravity. The space around the tree twisted like cloth being violently wrung. Azril didn't have time to scream. Within seconds, his existence was erased from the mortal world. He vanished into a vortex of cold light, leaving behind a small, cracked wooden toy on the ground that had returned to silence.
"Azril? My son?" Lana called out, realizing the sudden silence behind her. She ran toward the bushes, but all she found was emptiness. No portal, no lingering light, no footprints. Her son had vanished before her very eyes in the blink of an eye.
The screams of Arlo and Lana pierced the silent night. They clawed at the earth, digging through the bushes with bleeding fingers. Lana collapsed to the ground, weeping for a long time and blaming herself, but the universe only answered with a cold silence. They would never know that their son had been sucked into a dimensional rift created by the war of the gods in the heavens above. For them, that night was the beginning of a long curse they would bear forever.