Chapter 2
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Cain awoke to the sound of birds chirping and roosters crowing. He jumped put from his seat, and quickly made his way out the school. His family will be worried if they did not find him on the bed.
As soon as he stepped out the door of the classroom he was in, he was greeted with a piercing scream. Cain stopped in his tracks and saw a girl around his eldest brother’s age staring directly at him, eyes similar to that of a deer caught in headlights. “White hair. .”
“Yo--you’re an Abnormal!” She shrieked at him, her voice filled with hostility. “And why are you still alive?!”
Although perplexed, Cain was happy to meet another person after three years. He naively thought that she could be his first friend.
“My name is Cain! Can we be--”
“It--it can talk! Who taught you how to speak?!” Another person yelled. “Who in the world grew you?!”
Cain immediately stopped talking, the smile he wore on his face slowly fading away from the antagonism he received from the two children.
Before he realised it, a few villagers stared to gather, appalled by the sight of his figure. They started to grab farming tools and bulky pieces of wood, presumably to be used as weapons.
Bloodlust filled the air.
Cain who was confused as well as scared, ran home before more people came, zooming through the villagers as soon as he saw an opening. He could not digest their reactions.
It was as if they despised his presence near them. Cain did not know what they meant when they called him an Abnormal at the time. He only thought that they hated him for being him.
His mind clouded with pessimistic thoughts, he sought for the few people who did not look at him with eyes full of menace-- his family.
His house was very far away from the village. They had no neighbors, and the occasional visitor would either be a merchant or a government slave who came to collect tax. This was how the husband and wife managed to rid Cain from the villagers awareness for three whole years.
Cain took fast and short breaths as he was not accustomed to running long distances. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, dashed under the shades of trees and dodging tree branches. A few moments later, he reached the path he earlier took and proceeded to make his way home, panting heavily along the way.
He opened the door to be greeted with a dark and cold living room. “Mother?” Cain called in desperation. “Mother, where are you?”
Nothing but grim silence. That was when he decided to check his parents’ room.
“Mother?” He asked again.
A silhouette perked up from under the bed. “Is that you, son?”
The voice sounded meek yet rough-- nothing like the strong and beautiful voice Cain loved about his mother.
“What’s wrong, mother?” He asked, worried about the unnatural behaviour his mother was showing. “Are you sick?”
The figure suddenly scrambled towards Cain, engulfing him in a tight hug.
“Oh, Cain, my son. I’m glad you’re safe!”
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Cain returned her embrace, finally feeling safe after being chased around like a wild beast.
“Why do they chase me, mother? Is it because I played in brother’s school without permission?”
“You did nothing wrong. .” She cooed, running her fingers through Cain’s white hair. "I'm so sorry. ."
"For what, mother?"
"I'm so sorry. ."
His mother continued to repeat her words, her embrace tightening word after word.
"Moth. .er?"
Cain stuttered on his words, not because he was out of breath from his mother's hold, but because of a sudden pain he felt on his heart--both physically and mentally.
Cain looked up to his mother, like he always did whenever he needed answers. Instead of those compassionate eyes he was used to, he received dead eyes that looked at him like he was some kind of filth.
"I should have never given born to you."
The mother pulled out her knife from Cain's heart, only to stab it again until she was convinced that the little bastard was dead. He writhed in agony for one moment, and cried for help in the other. Blood splattered across the floor, the bed, on the walls--she continued to dig her knife until the body stopped moving, relieved when it did.
She dragged its body towards the door, leaving a trail of blood on the floor. She continued to drag all the way to the center of the village to put it on display.
"I killed it, I killed the Abnormal!"
She dropped its body on the ground for the villagers to see, as proof that it was her hands that freed them from their fear.
She was their saviour.
The villagers were not cynical of her actions. They had no way of knowing that the Abnormal's own mother killed him, and believed that the Abnormal was not a one raised by a local in the village when the mother told them so. Cain's body was burned on a stake, his ashes collected and thrown away. The mother disposed of traces of the Abnormal from her house--going as far as burning his umbilical cord. This was all so that her family would be free from any form of punishments when the government investigated their house. The Heavens was on the mother's side. Her family was deemed not guilty.
Only memories of Cain remained in the household, though none dared to speak of him. The father could only cry out his regret alone, of not telling his son about the truth earlier. His actions had led both his wife and sons to do the unthinkable.
Now, there was no longer a fourth child in his family.
.
.
.
There stood a man with long, white hair, in a room purely painted in white that stretched out as far as his eyes could perceive.
“I am what is known as Noir,” the man began to speak to the young boy.
“And you are a Noir candidate and this is your destiny. We are beings of similar value and vision.”
The boy stared at the man, confused. “. . But I am not Noir, I am called. . ” the boy paused before he could finish his sentence.
“Child, Noir is not just a name. We are a deity, we exist in all yet different universes and challenge fate itself. God is our equal-- do you call God by a name? God's name is God. Noir's name is Noir.”
“We take the form of Man because we do not seer others from above, we seer eye to eye. After all, we praise equal standing between humanoids.”
The boy could not reply, he was lost in everything the man said to him. The man noticed this and continued his speech.
“Humanoids are egoistical beings, they heed their false, illusionary self identity. They naturally incline towards selfishness rather than selflessness--,”
“They kill because it makes them feel powerful, they kill because of their selfish needs, they kill because it makes them feel safe--”
“And most evidently, they kill because you are a threat to this world’s balance.”
“My mother. . she. betrayed me.” The boy spoke, sadness and grief apparent from the tone of his voice.
“You have no mother. You are a seed we planted inside the womb of what humanoids consider a lowly female-- to expose you to the world of mistreatment from the lowest part of the hierarchy. Your anger should not be directed at the female, she acted so because she simply had to. The ones you should seek revenge on are the ones who drove her into a state of dread, the humanoid government.”
". . ."
"What happened to you was simply a grain of sand in the desert--there are those facing much worser than yours, and it is happening everywhere in this vast universe."
The boy was shown the cries, emotions of suffering, agonizing screams of people he did not recognize. As he watches the painful images playing inside his head, the man continued to speak.
“But we are different, we are the ones who can better the world, but the humanoid government do not want that,"
A foreign emotion muddled the boy's thoughts, he was angry. He wanted them to suffer.
“So share my name, join me on my quest, let us make this world--your world, a better place, for the people victim of fate.”
“You are no longer Cain--You are now Noir. You will travel through this world, obtain aid from trustworthy companions along your way, fix the way of evil, find the ruler of this world, destroy his hierarchy, kill him the way he killed you.”
"Make him know his place in your world. Better the world, Noir."
The innocent boy who they once called Cain, was reincarnated in the same world. Only now, he was a completely different person.