Chaos engulfed Phop Rak's home.
Everyone was searching, voices clashing, each calling his name.
At the center of it all, Pranee screamed at everyone.....
but deep inside, beneath the sharpness of her words, she bore a weight of regret that no one could see.
Evening descended.
And with the last golden ray fading from the sky, all hope of finding Phop Rak seemed to vanish as well.
That very moment, Pranee's strength shattered.....
like a mirror that had been kept upright for years, supported by a fragile piece of wood.
When the wood finally snapped, the mirror too broke....splintering into a thousand pieces.
Now… only Phop Rak and his father remained with her.
Her mother, her brother, her father.....
all had already departed from this world.
Not by accident.
But by the cruelty of this world itself.
Her brother…
he had once tried to help others, to bring light into their lives.
He had opened a free school, dreaming of giving knowledge to those who had none.
But the very poor whom he had sought to help spat venom at him.
Why?
Because that free school had nearly forced the great, wealthy institutions into ruin.
So the rich…
they paid the poor.
They bought their faith.
And those very people, once blessed by her brother's kindness, turned against him.
They accused him of the vilest crime....that he was selling children.
Her brother's heart broke.
It was not the world's cruelty alone that crushed him...
it was the betrayal of the very souls he wished to save.
And at last…
he chose to leave this world behind.
But fate was merciless.
After him, her family too fell to the same humiliation, the same weight of lies.
And one by one, they too left this world.
It was this memory that returned to Pranee now....
and with it, she broke down completely, unable to steady herself.
Her heart screamed with only one thought:
Phop Rak is still innocent.
He does not know the face of this cruel world.
That is why she had always forced him, pushed him, even driven him toward becoming someone harsher.
Because she could not bear for him to end like her brother.
That was the reason behind her scoldings.
That was why she lashed out, why she tried to harden his spirit.
Even on the day when Phop Rak had scored eighty percent and she had scolded him harshly…
inside, she had been crying.
Her tears were silent, hidden behind sharp words.
Because all she wanted was to shield him....
to keep him from ever being caught in the claws of the world's cruelty.
But never… never had she imagined that Phop Rak would run away from home.
And yet, the pain she carried was not only the grief of her brother and her family.
There was another stone she carried upon her heart.
A stone that pressed heavier with every passing day…
growing, suffocating, unbearable.