Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Fake Church (3)
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The ones who followed him inside were a mother and her daughter.
"......"
Worn and threadbare clothes.
Slumped shoulders drooping powerlessly.
And shadowed faces to top it all off.
The two of them looked like the very picture of folks who had weathered the storms of this barren world.
"Um......"
The woman who entered first looked easily over fifty.
Her face was a web of deep wrinkles layered from years of toil and time, her flaky skin a stark record of labor left untended for ages.
Especially striking were her hands—knobby and rough-jointed, with short-cropped nails stained underneath by something she could never quite scrub away. She fiddled endlessly with the hem of her clothes, her anxiety plain as day.
Her slightly bulging eyes darted ceaselessly around the unfamiliar space.
It was the wary caution of someone who'd spent a lifetime reading the room, always mindful of others' glances—the essence of a small person's existence, distilled in that fleeting moment.
She hovered at the doorway, fidgeting indecisively, torn between stepping forward or fleeing back outside.
At that moment, the man who had brought them here spoke up curtly.
"What're you standing around for? Sit down already."
Only then did she flinch and tug her daughter along.
Like someone who hesitated even to draw breath without permission, she scurried toward the chair across from him that he'd nodded at.
She half-perched on the torn sofa, pulling her daughter in tight beside her.
Glancing around once more, she finally parted her trembling lips.
"Um, excuse me......"
No telling how many times she wetted her lips before the words came.
"Really......"
Her voice carried a youthfulness that belied her weathered appearance. Perhaps the grind of life had aged her far beyond her true years.
"If we truly believe in the Lord of Radiance...... can any illness be cured?"
Desperation and fear mingled in her gaze, making her eyes quiver faintly.
Truth be told, her clothes were ragged and her face hollowed out, but she didn't seem gripped by any grave illness at first glance.
Which left the girl sitting doll-like at her side.
"......."
She looked about middle-school age.
A touch on the skinny side, but with neat, delicate features—a pretty little thing.
Yet a subtle wrongness soon made itself felt.
'Her gaze......'
The girl's eyes were fixed on some vague point straight ahead in the empty air.
Large and clear, but vacant and hazy, like glass beads that couldn't quite catch the light.
Her small hands simply clutched at the woman beside her. Anxiously, or perhaps as if it were her sole sanctuary, the girl refused to let go of her mother's rough hand.
As though, in a world swallowed by darkness, that warmth was all she had to cling to.
"......."
I watched the scene in silence, my eyes squeezing shut without thinking.
It was an era where God lay dead.
A society forged from common sense and reason.
Even here, there were those who fell for the honeyed lies of cults...
Were they simply fools? Mind-numbingly stupid?
Or had desperation pushed them that far?
No other lifeline in sight.
Arms outstretched to the very brink of reality's walls.
When even an inch ahead lay shrouded, even a frayed, rotten rope was something they'd have no choice but to seize.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Ah, hello? I'm... um, I run a little salon on 13th Street to scrape by. Name's Karen."
The woman paused, wrapping a light arm around the girl's shoulders.
"And this is my daughter, Sophia."
The girl dipped her head in mechanical greeting once her mother finished speaking.
But her eyes still roamed unfocused somewhere in the void.
Pain and sorrow flickered across the woman's face as she watched. She masked it quickly, though, and started rummaging in her bag as if to shift the topic.
She drew something out with care and unfolded it.
A single painting on somewhat yellowed paper.
A watercolor of a blue sky and green fields, with a distant city skyline etched in delicate strokes. Even to an art layman, it was plainly a fine piece of work.
"This is something our Sophia drew."
A radiant smile lit the woman's haggard features. It wasn't feigned—pure, heartfelt pride and joy in her daughter's gift.
"Pretty great, right? Folks have always said she had a real talent for drawing since she was little. Neighbors, school—everyone called her something special."
She went on in a proud tone, eyes glued to the painting.
Her voice picked up steam.
"Why, two years back, she up and snagged grand prize in that big education board art contest. Got picked as a special scholarship kid at... the City Art School!"
Omega Detroit Municipal Art School.
The stuff of dreams for any kid in the city with artistic ambitions—a star plucked straight from the heavens.
Top-notch training, and graduation all but guaranteed a ticket to the big time. Plenty of those multimillion-credit pieces in the high-rise galleries came from their grads, after all.
As she spoke of it, her shoulders squared unconsciously. Her own life might be stuck in these dingy alleys, but her girl could chase dazzling light. That hope was her whole world.
"Truth is... I've always felt like I owe this child. Raising her in dumps like this, skimping on food and clothes her whole young life. And yet our Sophia never whined once. Hard or hate it—she never said a word. What a good kid, huh?"
Guilt and tenderness warred across her face.
"Never even sent her to academies. But from way back, she'd scribble away in her sketchbook all on her own. And somehow... she made her talent bloom. As her mom, I'm beyond proud."
She stroked her daughter's hair with infinite gentleness. That touch brimmed with irreplaceable love.
"Ever since I met her, not a single unhappy moment. No matter how beat I came home after endless shifts, one look at Sophia's face chased the exhaustion away. She's the best gift my life's ever known."
Her expression plunged into shadow then.
"But......"
After an age of hesitation, she forced the words out.
"Glaucoma."
Glaucoma. Elevated eye pressure slowly, chronically wrecking the optic nerve, leading to blind spots—and eventually blindness. Once that nerve was gone, current medicine offered no real way back.
Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes as she said it.
"Our Sophia... she's gotten too good at hiding pain. When her sight started going, she didn't breathe a word to me. Didn't want me worrying... too sweet for her own good......"
Her voice cracked into the sobs she'd bottled up.
Fat tears traced down her weathered cheeks.
"If only I'd caught it sooner... paid her more mind...! If I hadn't burned myself out late nights chasing tuition pennies... made excuses about being tired instead of really looking her in the eyes and asking about her day...!"
Sophia's small hand settled softly on her mother's shuddering shoulder.
The girl said nothing—just lent her warmth to soothe the grief. Consoled by her own sightless daughter, the mother felt all the more wretched and bowed her head, words failing her.
"I was such an idiot... blind to what mattered, chasing cash like it'd fix everything."
After a stretch, she reined in her emotions and spoke again.
"Thing is, if we emptied every last saving... it might just cover prosthetic eye surgery."
Artificial eyes. Cutting-edge tech to replace lost sight—maybe even better than the originals.
But her face stayed grim.
"Sure, prosthetics would let her see again. But... she couldn't be a painter anymore."
She pressed on with effort.
Explaining what the art world chased these days.
Artists' aims had shifted with every era.
Long ago, it was nailing realism. Then cameras came along, freezing reality perfectly—and upended it all.
No out-detailing machines, so value swung to abstract vibes.
AI crashed that party too. Interpretation, expression—matching or beating human finesse.
Now, the art scene zeroed in on 'humanity' pure and simple.
Those machine-proof quirks only flesh-and-blood folks had.
Sensations, emotions, those raw inner visions only true humans grasped—that's what topped the value charts.
"That's why top schools like the City Art School... won't take cyborgs. Talent doesn't matter. Only perfectly 'human' kids make the cut."
Invisible class walls kicked in right there, Karen said.
Doors open to talent for all—but upper-crust kids filled the seats.
Lower zones meant polluted air, crap food—health wrecked as standard. Gut, limbs—cyber swaps were routine. End of story.
Fate locked in at birth.
Scaling the ladder in this sprawl? Damn near impossible.
"But parents dream anyway. Want their kid to have it better. Show their precious one a brighter world—that's just human."
Karen's eyes swung back to her daughter, brimming with raw longing.
"Our Sophia... she's destined to be a great painter. Not scraping by in alleys like me. An artist whose work wows even the glossy rich in their penthouses. Living without a care."
At last, Karen leaned forward like she might rise, hands clasped in desperate prayer.
"So please—if faith in the Lord of Radiance can heal her... truly make those eyes whole again? I'll give everything. Everything I have."
Her trembling fingers fished a battered credit card from her bag and held it out.
The tiny display crammed with years of piddly deposits scrolled by in fine print: 10 credits here, 20 there, day after day.
Monuments to her grind and dreams for her girl.
Tuition fund. Surgery maybe. Hard-won proof of it all.
She bowed low to the floor, offering it up.
"This is all I have. My one dream. Tell me to serve the church till I drop—I'll do it gladly. Any chore, no matter how brutal. Just..."
She all but begged.
"Save this child. Her, please......"
Her fervent plea hung in the room's thick silence.