The sound of water dripping from the iron beams went plink… plink…, as if keeping time with the hearts of the three children trembling in the darkness.
Kimh lay on his side, arms folded across his chest. The sharp eyes of the seventeen-year-old boy were filled with stubbornness and accumulated anger.
Nunna pressed herself closer, wrapping her arms tightly around the youngest brother to shield him from the biting wind that crept in relentlessly.
Kongphop squeezed his eyes shut, yet his body still shivered—both from the cold and the fear gnawing at his heart.
"Tomorrow… I'll find us work,"
Kimh whispered softly, a promise that weighed heavily on his own heart.
He looked at the two younger siblings with pain—this was the only family he had left.
Nunna turned to him, tears welling in her eyes. "We won't let anyone trample over us again… right?"
Kimh clenched his fists. "Never."
---
Morning...
The sound of a luxury car drove along the road above. The three children, startled awake, glanced at their tattered clothes and then at their reflections in the puddles—so different from the children in the cars, laughing in their neat school uniforms.
The stark contrast of social class cut into their hearts like a knife.
"One day… we won't lose to them," Kimh murmured fiercely.
---
That evening
While the three scavenged for scraps in the deserted market, the bell of an old temple on the hill rang out, seemingly from nowhere.
Nunna stopped in her tracks, her heart racing for no reason. She looked up at the sky. The rain, which had been falling, suddenly ceased.
And a light appeared in the heavens—
a strange star shone a deep crimson, like a flame slowly weaving its light down toward the world.
Kongphop instinctively reached out his hand. "Brother… look. It's like the star is watching us."
Nunna and Kimh exchanged glances, the cold seeping into their bones.
Deep down… they both felt as if something was calling to them.