He sat at his desk, absent-minded, his gaze flicking around the classroom like a restless bird. Dust motes floating lazily in the air, but he barely noticed.He stared at his reflection in the window. Behind the glass, sunlight danced..but it looked fake, distant. Like everything else.
A faint hum of chatter filled the room as students played their childish games, some pretending to be gods and devils, some plotting small rivalries over trivial things.
A hand shot up in front of him, and a voice asked to go to the washroom. Valen lingered for a second too long, watching the scene unfold. The question was insignificant, meaningless—a ritual that only existed to remind them all that rules must be followed, even if they made no sense.
"VV!" someone called from the back, a nickname that had stuck with him since childhood. He didn't respond, only blinked once, the sound barely registering in his mind.
"They grew up. Textbooks thickened, fairytales faded, Santa died quietly — but one belief stayed strong in both the adults and the youth."
He always wondered why no one asked 'why.'
He always wondered why can't he ask..."why?"
Why is everyone forced into a certain belief since the time they don't even develop a brain to think on their own,why is blind obedience rewarded over asking..why?
He thinks,
Am I the nuisance?
Or Are they the weak.
The ..Blind.
Students glance at him while he daydreams in the class.
Years passed. The small absurdities of childhood grew into a forest of rules and arbitrary restrictions. Valen noticed them everywhere: the rigid patterns in school, the unquestioned obedience to teachers and priests, the fear that underlay polite conversation.
People followed rules not because they made sense, but because everyone else did. Whoever questioned it was silenced by the herd. No one dared to break the norm…no one dared to get out of their comfort zone,no one dared to be..different.
VV! Here! A coin if you throw it in the well and make a wish it gets true!
He thought of this as meaningless and illogical.
People called him rude, cold, toxic and what not. But all he did was speak his thoughts plainly. Never lie, they said but get offended when truth came unfiltered.
He thought about it. Could you really blame them? Intelligence, he realized, was the cruelest form of superiority. Unlike other skills, it could not be flaunted without consequence. To claim you were smarter than someone made you arrogant in their eyes...even when you spoke only facts. Show mastery of strength, art, or craft, and people might envy you, admire you, even aspire to reach you. But intelligence? No one could accept being less than it.
Isn't it ridiculous? The universe is vast...so massive that Earth is barely a grain of sand, astronomically insignificant. And yet we pretend that tiny creatures like us, bowing to a cube or reciting prayers, can alter fate. We feed children outdated dogmas and illogical stories, to minds too small or too scared to ask why, too weak to think for themselves. If hell exists, it should be reserved for them.
The problem with truth, he realized, is simple: no one wants to acknowledge their flaws.
Brutal honesty exposes what people try hardest to hide—their insecurity, their smallness.
He, at least, accepted his own imperfections. He knew he wasn't perfect… but neither was anyone else.
Even when people do admit someone is smarter, their measurement of intelligence is broken.
They mistake high grades for wisdom.
They praise test scores and forget the other kinds of intellect—rational, creative, practical.
But above all, one form of intelligence rules them all… and he lacked it.
Emotional intelligence.
Doing something even when it's meaningless..because life itself is meaningless until we give it meaning.
He had a long way to go before he'd learn that.
Show talent, and people envy you.
Show intellect, and they hate you.
No one can bear to admit their own stupidity.
He saw a boy cornered by two others, both his age. The kid looked healthy...strong enough to fight back if he tried. Valen paused, watching. Are the "weak" really worth saving?
He thought, Not everyone is strong… but what about those who willingly surrender themselves to blind faith?
Toxicity passed down through generations. Women defending doctrines that speak against them, teaching the same lessons to their daughters: cover your body, hide your beauty, as if immodesty lies in their flesh rather than in the men's eyes that ogle it. Old ideas rooted in patriarchy and control, yet they let themselves be used..and even pass it on, preaching it to the next generation of innocent minds.
It was sad, he thought, how people clung to ancient beliefs even as technology advanced. How the world's leaders wielded religion like a weapon, destroying nations in its name. And the poor suffered alongside them—not because they were different, but simply because there were fewer of them.
He had so much to say, so much to challenge—but slowly he realized it was probably useless. They were all the same. Countless philosophies, countless ideas, yet nothing ever changed. And without power… could he truly make a difference?
Time passed like this, imperceptibly. Rules piled upon rules, absurdities building into an empire of meaninglessness. He watched as older students whispered to each other about which teachers were strict, which rules could be bent, which punishments could be avoided. Every step, every choice, every word was measured against fear. Fear of consequence, fear of ridicule, fear of looking weak.
And then, after the exam.
He picked up the paper, glanced at it briefly, and let it fall into the dustbin beside his desk. The action was fluid, natural. The paper had no purpose. It had never had a purpose. He had done this countless times, each one a quiet protest against senseless ritual.
The principal's eyes narrowed. Her face flushed with a mix of fury and disbelief. "Valen!" she barked, voice sharp enough to make pens rattle on desks. "What do you think you're doing?"
She whirled toward the students, hands shaking slightly, her composed veneer cracking. "Is he right or wrong?" she demanded.
Hands went up—hesitant, trembling. Cowards, all of them, parroting what they thought they were supposed to say. "Wrong," they chorused, voices small, afraid, unconvincing even to themselves.
The piece of paper had no purpose to exist..after it's work was done.
"He tried to defend himself logically, but was silenced — not because he was wrong, but because he was different. Different was dangerous, and danger was never 'normal.'"
He changed that..and breaking the norm,
Broke the comfort of the herd.
Valen's jaw clenched. A tremor ran through him, subtle but insistent. He wanted to scream, to shake them, to make them see how ridiculous it all was. But he couldn't. He was powerless. The weight of their fear pressed down on him, suffocating, relentless.
"You're suspended for a week," the principal spat, turning away as if dismissing a minor insect.
As he walked down the hallway students mocked him,teachers whispered among themselves saying how he used to be so bright.
At home, disappointment waited for him. His parents' faces were drawn, tired. Words cut sharper than the principal's yelling. "Liability. Always causing trouble. You'll never learn." Their voices melded into a single, crushing certainty that he was flawed, defective, unworthy.
He was good at everything he tried. Some praised him for it. Others resented him.
Sometimes, he wondered if he'd trade all of it just to be normal.
He thought, probably thousands, maybe a million, would die to be him. But he? Did he ever want to be "gifted"? He had never asked to be smarter. He was born like this..he couldn't change it. This so-called boon was slowly becoming a curse.
Later, in the shower, water poured over him like a quiet accusation. He let it run over his body, letting the sting of it mirror the sting of reality. He thought of the principal, the students, his parents..all of them trapped by their fear, their compliance. How stupid they were. How blind. How utterly weak.
Or..was he?
And in that moment, a slow, cold realization settled in his chest: he was alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone in a world that rewarded cowardice. Alone, except for the dark seed of something else—the idea that one day, he could change it.
Alone in his room, he slouched in his chair, scrolling mindlessly for something—anything—to break the monotony of the week. A post caught his eye. A ritual for summoning higher beings, promising power in exchange for obedience.
He snorted. He didn't believe in rituals or "higher beings." But tonight, something gnawed at him. What if I'm the one who's wrong?
The post led to a strange website. Four "catalysts" were listed.
Three were already claimed. The last was different—not a supreme being, but a prisoner of the past.
The instructions were clear: Engrave the sigil onto something you always carry with you.
He frowned. He didn't have anything like that. His eyes drifted to the pile of pocket money he hadn't touched in months. He stuffed some into his pocket and left. His parents watched him go, a flicker of surprise in their eyes. Was he changing?
At the edge of town, a tattoo artist worked under dim neon lights. Valen handed over the symbols—three foreign characters he couldn't read—and told the artist to engrave them into his chest.
Most people carved the contract onto an object. If they failed, the object passed on to someone else. But Valen had engraved the sigil into his own flesh. Whatever happened now would be bound directly to him.
Later that night, pain flared through his chest like a burning brand. He gasped, clutching at his heart. Laughter echoed around him—a circle of blurred faces mocking him, their eyes hollow. He froze.
A hand reached out. A girl stood before him,red hair,pale and still, her eyes like broken glass.
"Do you want the power to change the world?" she asked.
He hesitated. Thought of the school, the rules, the suffocating fear. "Yes."
Her lips curved into a faint smile. A parchment appeared in her hands. "Then sign the contract. I want chaos. Ten thousand points of it. For comparison…" She tilted her head. "World War Two was only four thousand."
His breath caught. Ten thousand? Could that even be done? But the thought of power—real power—dragged him forward. "I agree."
He reached for the contract, but before he could ask what power he'd been given, everything dissolved.
Valen woke in his bed, drenched in sweat, heart pounding. The symbols on his chest burned faintly under his palm. A nightmare… or something else?
He sat up, heart still pounding, and reached for his phone.
The screen's glow lit the room as he scrolled through his history, searching for the post—the website.
Nothing.
The page was gone. The account, deleted. The link, broken.
He frowned, refreshing again and again, but every trace had vanished, as if it had never existed.
The faint symbols on his chest pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
And in the darkness, something laughed.
He said to himself..
I..
Valen Vallencourt.
I shall Change the world..
And create a new one.