The Smith household had never been quiet. Since Lucy could remember, guitars, shouting, and arguments had filled the halls. But after John Smith's death, the silence was different. Not peace—tension. Like a string stretched too tight, ready to snap.
Phil Smith spent more time drinking than playing. His once powerful voice had grown tired. When he thought no one watched, he sat staring at old photographs of his youth, his expression hollow.
Claren, on the other hand, grew harder each day. She walked with firm steps, avoided mentioning John, and when she did, her face darkened. Lucy often overheard her muttering:
—That man should never have had a place in our lives.
For Lucy, every conversation with his parents became an exercise in deduction. He could read the resentment in his mother's tone, the frustration in his father's silence. But now, with the Karmic Eyes, he saw more.
When he looked at his mother, the green thread that bound them pulsed brightly—pure care, almost suffocating in its intensity. When his gaze fell on his father, the gray thread disturbed him. It weakened by the day, ready to snap.
And in the old photographs of his grandfather, that heavy black thread always appeared, raw and festering.
One rainy night, Lucy overheard his parents arguing in the living room.
—What are you going to do with your father's house? —Claren asked sharply.
—I don't know… —Phil ran a hand through his hair—. Sell it, burn it… I don't know.
—You should destroy every trace of him —she spat—. That man ruined us.
Hidden by the door, Lucy saw their threads quiver. The gray between him and his father flickered weakly, the green toward his mother flared with anger. For the first time, Lucy understood: the threads weren't just connections. They were maps of what people were inside.
Days passed, and Lucy realized his grandfather's letter hadn't been a warning. It was a sentence. "Your life will no longer be your own." Those words haunted him.
He began writing in a notebook of his own:
Green = care, protection.
Gray = weakness, fading ties.
Black = hatred, scars that never heal.
Each page was an attempt to tame a power that overwhelmed him.
Monday morning pulled him back to reality: school. Lucy attended a public high school, where graffiti covered the walls and rumors spread faster than homework.
On his way, the threads overwhelmed him. They stretched everywhere—between neighbors arguing, friends laughing, strangers brushing past. An endless weave of colors, an ordered chaos that left him dizzy.
"If I keep seeing this all the time, I'll go insane," he muttered.
When he reached the school gates, he took a deep breath. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Karmic Eyes revealed something here.
The noise of students welcomed him as always. But Lucy knew he no longer belonged among them in the same way. He hadn't inherited just a house or some money.
He had inherited judgment.
And sooner or later, someone in that school would be the first to face it.