Ten years ago, something entered our world.
On a crowded city street, a child tugged her mother's sleeve and pointed skyward in silent wonder. Her eyes fixed on a distant spark that swelled into a blazing ribbon, silent, immense, streaking across the heavens like a comet of pure light.
The moment rippled outward. Murmurs rose through the crowd. Shoes shuffled on the pavement. Traffic hushed as faces tilted up, awe spreading like a tide.
The same scene unfolded everywhere, simultaneously.
Pacific fishermen braced against an impossible swell. Nomadic herders stood frozen, their flocks eerily quiet. On the savanna, lions and antelope paused mid-stride.
In Antarctica, three researchers outside their base lifted their gazes to the same incomprehensible arc.
It grew larger. Brighter. Faster. It descended, piercing the Earth. The air trembled in its wake. The sun set calmly below the ordinary orange horizon.
Clouds hung frozen mid-swirl.
Oceans and continents stretched vast, locked in place, reflecting the day's last warmth. Human lights glimmered like faint constellations—tiny beacons of civilisation's fragile rhythm, oblivious to what was coming.
Then came the Bestowal.
A global wave of molten sweetness laced with metallic ozone swept the atmosphere in seconds, cascading over the Earth.
No roar. No thunder. Only a deep vibration in the marrow, a slow pulse in the blood, a momentary hitch in every heartbeat worldwide.
Humanity hung between fear and wonder.
Some froze, eyes wide, breath caught. Others gasped, stumbled back, and clutched loved ones to anchor themselves. A few laughed—nervous, trembling sounds swallowed by the hum of stalled traffic. Some prayed aloud; others whispered frantic questions into the wind.
Hearts raced. Muscles tensed. Skin tingled. Every pulse echoed the impossible sight above.
For one fragile moment, humanity was united in chaotic awe.
The sky ignited in impossible colours: violent violet bleeding into incandescent crimson, veined with rivers of liquid gold flowing from pale lemon through ember orange.
A wordless resonance hummed along the seams of reality.
Delicate luminous motes drifted like glowing snow, tumbling in invisible currents, whispering frequencies beyond hearing.
Nothing escaped their touch—pure warmth without heat, weight without pressure, sound without noise.
And without words, they sang a song older than stars.
The phenomenon became known simply as the Lightfall—filed in history lessons between dinosaurs and world wars: a chapter both distant and unforgettable.
The world we inherited was scarcely recognisable, reshaped in ways at once breathtaking and quietly profound.
What followed belonged not to one voice or one life, but to all of us who learned to live in its aftermath.
Present day – Morning.
Morning sunlight slipped through the opecasting a golden glow over the dark room and amber.
I lingered in dreams, my body sunk into the cool duvet, one hand near my temple, breathing slow and even. Behind me, curtains stirred. A cool wind carried sea salt past the railing to graze my neck. Sunlight traced lazy patterns along my arm.
I didn't move. I let the warmth soak in, let the golden haze press against the edges of thought. Nowhere to go. Nothing to be but this: suspended between sleep and waking.
The city stirred beyond the glass. My room held its own quiet rhythm—a haven that needed to prove nothing.
"Young Master… are you awake?"
Two tentative knocks.
A pause.
The knocks came again.
Part of me wanted to stay exactly where I was, suspended, where nothing could ask anything of me.
I pushed up against the headboard. Sheets sighed and slid forward. Sunlight spilt across my left shoulder, warming my skin. My sleepy gaze fixed on the door—a figure stood there, backlit against the frosted glass.
I crossed the room, steps muted on the rug, and eased the door open.
A comforting scent reached me: citrus-warm rose, soft and familiar, the quiet essence of home distilled into one breath.
Her eyes—large, luminous, crystalline blue like mine—met my gaze with steady calm. Around each iris curled a slender black spiral, precise and hypnotic, catching amber light like ink suspended in glass.
She had a rounded, graceful face and a medium skin tone. Her hair was mostly gathered in a bun, the rest cascading in soft waves down her back, a few strands loose to frame her face in delicate curls. The colour hovered between auburn and warm brown, threaded with subtle red that shimmered in the sun.
She stood in a long cream sweater and dark leggings, her posture perfectly straight despite the hesitation in her voice. Her hands rested at her sides, fingers still—no fidgeting, no nervous gestures. Even the way she held my gaze, unwavering, spoke of someone who'd learned certainty the hard way. Twenty-five to my seventeen, eight years my senior.
"Good morning, Mira. What brings you up this early?" My voice was still rough from sleep.
"Good morning." Her eyes held mine as I slumped slightly before her, probing as if reading thoughts I hadn't voiced.
"Did you change your mind?"
She hesitated. Something flickered—hope, perhaps, or fear of trying too hard.
"It's Saturday. You said you'd go out today… just like you used to."
A breath.
"I already made your breakfast."
Her voice wavered on the last words, fragile, as if she feared my reaction.
Only then did I realise she had taken my casual words seriously, though I'd spoken them half in jest.
Back then, I really liked wandering through the city on Saturdays. I chose it as a special day for myself, when there were no school obligations and nothing was pressing to do—just me, the city, and the freedom to wander.
I offered a half-smile, shifted my weight, and brushed the back of my neck awkwardly.
"Sorry. I slept right through it. I'll get ready now—and thank you, really, for waking me."
Maybe it was time to step back into the world I'd kept my distance from.
There was no escaping it anyway.
She returned a small, pleased smile.
"I couldn't let you sleep through it," she said, then added with mock scolding, "Hurry before your breakfast gets cold."
She turned and left.
The door clicked shut. I stood there, hand still on the handle, staring at nothing.
*Just like you used to.*
Before everything changed.
The memory surfaced unbidden, cold and sharp as the rain that had soaked through my clothes that night.
Two years after the night I didn't just lose my parents—I watched the universe blink and deem them expendable.
The playground lay abandoned. Rain hammered the swings and slides, pounding as if to erase them faster. It ran in rivulets across empty benches and traced cold paths down my hands as I stood motionless, breath trapped between lungs and throat. Rainwater streamed through my hair and dripped down my cheeks to the ground.
No scream. No tears.
Only silence, and the sound of the world moving on without them.
They were never symbols carved in stone.
They were flesh and blood: warm hands, weary smiles, voices that promised everything would be all right—and meant it.
My hands clenched. Rain had soaked through my clothes to the skin, seeping deeper. The metallic tang of blood hung sharp in the air.
Mother's perfume clung to the rain, refusing to fade.
Father's hand was colder than it had any right to be.
I had believed in the world because they fought for it.
This rotten, ungrateful world.
It answered my faith by tearing them apart—as if daring me to swallow the lesson.
Does a world like this even deserve heroes?
Something broke inside me that night. Not with a crash. Not all at once.
It fractured slowly, like glass under patient, unrelenting pressure.
My knees buckled. The strength to stand simply vanished.
I didn't know what to do.
My rage, hatred, anger—nowhere to put them.
Worse, I was ashamed of needing anyone, ashamed of how weak the hurt still made me feel.
I couldn't move through the world without carrying it all.
My parents were never truly with me after I was born. Heroic duties always came first. Seeing them was never guaranteed; it was a privilege I could never take for granted.
And just when I glimpsed enough of their love to believe it real—they were taken.
The hatred grew in small, bitter increments. A news broadcast praising heroes while I ate dinner alone. A classmate's father picking them up from school. The empty chair at my birthday table. Each absence carved deeper, until I couldn't look at their photos without my jaw clenching, couldn't hear the word "hero" without tasting bile.
Mira raised me. Her trust. Her warmth. Her love. The quiet certainty that she mattered to me.
She shaped the pieces no one else noticed, carried me through years I couldn't carry myself.
It was enough to hold my darkness at bay.
Darkness that met the love I carried so fiercely that even it learned its name.
How can I let that love die quietly?
Next time, if the world tries to tear apart anything I hold dear again, I will protect it—even if it's the only part of this world that still feels real, the only part left standing.