The case was put to rest, since the participating parties had already acted according to the rules and dealt a proper punishment to themselves and the family, now only containing two people continued their lives under the nobles, without ever mentioning this ‘incident’ again.

This ‘incident’ changed the life of those two for the rest of their lives:

First off, since the mother of the group has used to attend to the youngest daughter of the house, it now became the duty of Imogyeran to be the one, to overtake her past work.

Since he was roughly the same age as the house’s daughter, he was often made a plaything for her whims and spend a large amount of time attending to her in that way. In case anything happened due to her actions such as broken toys or furniture or if anything occurred that annoyed the higher-ups, then he would get punished accordingly.

When not attending to her directly, he was tasked with helping with menial tasks such as helping the other maids cook or helping in preparing the dinner table or washing the dishes.

Surprisingly, the young boy Imogyeran was never really treated badly by the house’s residents. This was partly, because the young daughter, Elise Blueseva, took quite a liking to the boy and because he never really gave any opportunity to the nobles to badmouth or punish him.

After he started his work, he was always giving it his best to be as diligent as possible and when he interacted with the young miss Elise, he never crossed any lines and always kept a respectable distance, respecting the difference in the status of these two children.

In return he experienced many positive benefits:

Not only did he get plenty of rest inbetween chores and was even lucky enough to participate in the young lady’s lingual lessons under the condition that he remained a silent bystander. This was a huge chance for the young boy but during his entire time as a servant of this noble-family he never once showed even a single hint of a smile. He always wore the same stoic expression, eyes hollowed out, looking at the boots of any person, he talked to. His back was straight, his legs were shaking but always tried to remain upright. He never tried to speak his mind and just listened to his instructions, trying his best at fulfilling his masters’ wishes.

It was like a robot, simply living on behalf of someone else: It was pitying.

Though nobody ever approached him because of this, most of the citizens as well as the workers in the mansion noticed something on the boy’s body: With every passing day, there appeared to be more marks on it. Blue spots, red spots at every part of it. It was especially bad around his neck…

..

SMACK
…

…

My father goes over into his bed to sleep, while I am laying on the ground like the doll, remembering the doll that Elise used to play with a few days ago. When she got bored of it and threw it onto the ground, maybe it must have looked like I am looking right now.

For the past time, ever since ‘that’ happened, my father has made it a habit to repeat this ‘lecture’ once every day for every single day. I have no idea, how long it’s been, but at this point it doesn’t really matter. At first, it used to hurt so much, that I passed out every time. I cried a lot during that time. But it only took a few days, yes only a few days until I didn’t feel anything anymore. Even now, I don’t feel anything, no pain, no sadness, only emptiness.

…

I slowly heave my body away from the ground and make my way to a vacant bed in the room, throwing myself onto it and closing my eyes. I have no idea what it is, but for some time now, every night that I lie down like that, I begin to hear something around me. At first, it felt like a cold breeze, brushing past my cheeks but we are underground and there is no wind, that can reach this far into the ground.

No matter, where I look, I cannot seem to find the source of this sound, so I gave up on looking after a while.

As the days passed, the noise intensified and it changed from being a ‘noise’ into something like being a ‘feeling’. Every time I get into this state, I feel a strange calmness, as if nothing matters anymore. Today is especially intense of an emotion emanating from this thing. I fall into a dreamlike state.

I watch a barren field of wheat, that has been abandoned due to the farmers moving out. As the seasons pass, the crops are trying to sustain themselves through eating the nutrients, they are naturally getting from the earth. The air; the life-force that they siphon from nature. These crops persist for a long time without anyone caring for them, eating the sunlight from the skies, drinking the water from the ground. But the fields aren’t made to sustain themselves forever.

Once the seasons change, the sky becomes more cloudy and the sun shines through the thick layer of clouds less and less, the wheat is getting less and less sunlight to eat.

They are starving

Once the climate is getting more stable, there are extended periods of drought, making the rain coming down diminish and the wheat is not able to absorb the water from the ground anymore.

They are thirsting

Once the seasons change, there is a big thunderstorm and rain keeps pouring down on the ground, making it soggy and over-saturating it with water. The crops are unable to absorb this amount of water and their foundation is getting loose. The plants are in danger of losing their stable footing and being plucked out.

They are drowning

The thunderstorm eventually subsides leaving back a couple of wheat that have to endure a cold winter. The temperature on open field as well as the cold winds make the fiber porous.

They are freezing

Throughout all this, a single batch of wheat remains on the field, any other crop having long withered away.

This one batch starts discoloring into a gray and lifeless color. The golden beauty that has once been, is no more.

I am weakening

But throughout all this, the single strand doesn’t wither. A day passes and another one. This piece of weed remains resilient and always stands upright. More days pass. The weed is eventually shrinking, the yields of the next season nowhere to be seen and the fiber becoming as brittle as old fern. Eventually this piece of crop has a thought:

I am dying

With a gasp, I wake up, my body shivering from an immeasurable coldness. My body doesn’t stop shaking and I try to cuddle under my piece of cloth that I normally use as a blanket.

I can hear my teeth chatter like a cicada. I am almost getting teary-eyed and I look for anyone to help me. I don’t care who it is, but I need someone to talk to me, I need the warmth of another person.

Gasp

I remember the other person inside this room: my father. At this point in time, I don’t care what he will do to me, if I run to him this late at night but I don’t care about that right now.

With shaking hands I lift the blanket off of my body and I turn towards my father.

…

He is sitting on the ground, his gaze turned into my direction, eyes wide open, hands red, chest red, a short dagger protruding through it.

..

Unable to run away, unable to avert his eyes, unable to fall unconscious, the boy lets out the loudest scream in his entire life.