The time has flown far beyond midnight, yet the drowsiness that normally steals my consciousness has failed to appear. I sit on the floor with the back of my head resting against the foot of my bed. In my left hand is the knife, and in my right is the ‘prize’ that my official awarded me.

“Congratulations,” he had said, “on winning.”

It was the only time he sounded sincere.

I crumple the paper in my right hand. It only says five words. ‘Zee’, it says in a messy scrawl. Beneath it is written, ‘Promoted to group three.’

I feel I did so much more than jump to the next group. Truthfully, being the best was never my complete mission. I simply wanted people to cease seeing me as an inadequate outcast. Group one or no, I still defeated 2A, who was the supposed top trainee in Shin. I beat him, and yet I only moved up by one group.

I toss the ball of paper to the wall. Even though I know it will make a thick sound, I throw the knife, too. It lands directly above the paper.

Five minutes later, a fist raps my door. Unwilling to open it, I stare at the knob until the person behind the door twists it. The hinges creak, and then Ada steps through.

“Don’t come in,” I say before she can take one more step.

“I heard something – “

“Don’t come in.”

We watch each other quietly. In a whisper, she asks, “Are you okay?”

Her question reminds me that we haven’t talked properly in a long time. She hasn’t said my name – Zee – in a while, either. She’s afraid to trust a person she doesn’t entirely know.

“There’s a knife on the wall,” I say casually.

She searches for the knife. “Where did you get that?”

“Do you want it?”

Her foot slides back. She’s afraid. Before, I would have been thankful for the distance, but now, I don’t know if it’s a good thing.

“You wanted to practice, and I never got to teach you.” She wouldn’t let me. Not after that night I exploded in front of her. “You can have that.”

“I don’t know how to use that.”

“It’s easy,” I say. “You hold it. You think about what you want to hit. You throw.”

She hasn’t let go of the knob. “Do you miss home?”

I snicker. “Home? I’m not sure what that is.”

She looks like she wants to tell me that I have a home here if I want it, but she doesn’t say it. Instead, she says, “I heard about your moving to group three. I wanted to congratulate you.”

“Yeah? Thanks.” I look at my right palm. It’s covered with blisters.

“Well,” she says. She doesn’t know what to talk about, either. “I guess I’ll go.”

“Take the knife with you.”

She releases the knob. “Why?”

I smile, but it feels uncomfortable in the same way wearing wet clothes would feel. “My thanks for taking me in.”

She stares at me. She doesn’t believe that I’m grateful to her, but she pulls the knife from the wall anyway. As she starts to close the door, she mumbles, “Goodnight.”

When she leaves, I stand up and pick up the paper. I unravel it to read the words again, and then I open the window. Something outside flies into my room and lands onto my arm. When I look closely, I see that it’s a snowflake.

Out of the flat and black sky falls a thousand frozen stars that drift with the swing of every breeze. The wind catches the paper and takes it away from my hand. I watch it plummet and rise among the snowflakes until it is so far away that it begins to look like a dim, brown star.

I sit beneath the window and let the stars shower my head with their ephemeral kisses. As my eyelids begin to close, I think of Ada.

I hope that one day, I can make her understand.

-----

“Push-ups to failure,” my new official tells me, “starting now.”

I fall to the ground, land on my palms, and push the floor repeatedly. After ten push-ups, I try to watch group four as they run around the field. I see Chen, who has his own unique way of running. I smile to myself, and then I look down.

There isn’t anybody in group three with whom I can be playful. All of them are already acquainted with each other, and none of them wish to know me. I eat lunch alone, and I practice alone, save for the partner exercises.

Whispers surround me throughout the day. Group three ostracizes me, group two denies that I exist, and group one simply wishes to pretend as if nothing happened. As for group four, only Chen ever knew me, and I haven’t seen him all morning.

I miss the guy, even though I swore I didn’t need him.

When the day ends, I find Chen before I lose him. He has a smear of dirt on his cheek, deepening the dent by his cheekbone with faulty shadows.

“Chen.”

I have never seen him look at me with eyes washed with lassitude. His smile of disappointment caves a hole in my heart, and it is then that I feel I have failed the world in a pursuit of myself.

“How was your first time in group three?”

“It was great,” I lie. “I learned a lot.” I don’t remember anything.

“That’s good. That’s really good that you get to learn more, Zee.” He pats my back. “Group four is the same, in case you were wondering.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t great. I don’t know anybody,” I admit. The rejected slump of his shoulder beckons my sympathy. “I do miss group four, Chen, don’t think I don’t.”

“That’s not it, Zee. It’s just – I’m sorry. It’s been a bad day. Nothing went well. And this arm, and I don’t mean to put the blame on you, but it’s a bother.” He rubs his eyes. “I am happy for you. I’m also ambitious. Even with this handicap, I can go to group three. You’ll see.”

I laugh. “All right. I’ll see you there.”

“See you tomorrow, Zee,” he says to me as he turns down the other side of the road.

“Tomorrow,” I answer. “Chen.”

As I walk home, I ponder the time that has passed since I was first brought to Shin. I never planned on adjusting. I merely planned on exceeding. But perhaps I can live here, forever. Perhaps I can always go to training camp, meet Chen, and eventually find a home away from Ada and her mother.

When that time of comfort comes, maybe I can finally hear them say my name.

Tao.

I hardly remember what it sounds like anymore.

-----

I dream of orange smoke and putrid fire.

I dream of grinding screams and savage deaths.

I dream of an imagined, vicious world that exists in my head, but when I open my eyes and smell acrid smoke and see fiery tongues the outside of my window, I realize that my dream was an introduction to reality.

I burst out of my bed and swing the door open. Fire has begun to impinge the narrow halls of the house. I lift my shirt to cover my nostrils, and then I run to the front door. The door is entirely consumed by fire. I turn around to find another way of escape. The living room is so full of smoke and fog that I can barely see the windows. Finding no other option, I pull the curtain rod from the wall, shed the curtains, and swing. The window breaks into a jagged circle. I punch the sharp shards at the base of the windowpane before jumping through the broken window. I roll on the floor and stagger to my feet.

The entire neighborhood is burning. Although the sky is still dark with its unveiled morning eyes, the fires make beacons out of every rooftop in the town. In desperate and tired waves, coughing people rush out of their homes. Their faces are streaked with ash, their clothes tinged with black crusts. They watch, bewildered, as the fire spreads over the street.

An old man escapes the house across from me. Instinctively, I rush to keep him steady. He leans on me as he gathers his bearings, and then he wheezes.

“A … fire … “

“That’s right,” I say. “You’ll be fine.”

“This is … an attack … “ His hands are shaking. Somewhere, a woman screams. I need to leave this man, but he won’t release me.

“There are no attackers here,” I answer.

“No … it’s an invasion … I suspected as much … “

“You’re delusional,” I reply, getting angry. I need to figure out where the fire began, so that I can stop it from spreading. “There is no atta – “

He slumps from my arms like a broken toy. Stricken, I stare at his body. Protruding from his back is a knife.

I turn my head to see a man dressed in black standing behind the waving haze of the fires’ breath. He accurately threw his knife even at the distance from where he stood. Suddenly aware of the danger, I scramble to the refuge of the old man’s house. Although it is deteriorating within my fingertips, its steaming architecture is far less hostile to me than the man who threw the knife.

It’s only when I see the dead man again do I realize that never once did the safety of Ada and her mother cross my mind.

I am a hypocrite to want to be remembered by people without a thought of remembering them.

I watch the house, but the fire has already engulfed its body and turned it into a black skeleton. If they had escaped before me, they are safe; and if not, then they are as broken as the man lying on the ground.

I need to reevaluate my actions. I was trained for unbidden moments such as this. I will not allow myself to lose focus at the approach of a life and death circumstance.

I glance up, but the man in black has gone. I need to identify who he is, and how many are with him. A fire this large cannot be started alone. I scan my surroundings and find a walking stick on the floor. Although lighter and shorter, it resembles a rod. Holding it securely in my hand, I duck out of the house and to a different place of refuge.

I scan the street. There are still people aimlessly roaming outside their houses, unaware of the danger before them. I see a knife pierce a person hunched over another being on the ground. The body falls.

As more knives are thrown, people begin to scream with a different kind of fear. Boys who have been trained by Shin’s officers rush out with useless household items, but they are swept away by these men in black. They are hopeless in a pit of fire with enemies they cannot see.

I look at the house again. Perhaps I should move closer and see if Ada or her mother survived. I know I have no responsibility over them, but Chen’s words hang over me like a dismal cloud.

“That was inhuman.”

But I don’t have to be.

I step forward to run, but a man grabs my shoulder. I swing around to hit him with the stick, but he blocks it with his arm and grazes my stomach with his knife. I grit my teeth and jump back. I slash the walking stick across his chest as I move around him and tear his black shirt. I start to attack again when I see the tattoo on his chest.

A crescent moon.

He’s a Night.

“You came back,” I incredulously say, but he punches me in the gut. I drop the walking stick and fold to the floor.

“Come with me, or you’re dead,” he says. He pulls me to my feet by the collar, and obediently, I let him. He leads me out to the street, where I see other boys being hauled away by numerous Nights. Bodies lay strewn on the floor. I give the house one last glimpse, and that is when I see Ada limp away from the darkness and into the street.

“Zee!” She shouts. The trail of her tears wipes clean the dirt on her face. “Zee! Mum’s dead. She’s dead!”

She screams for me, but I cannot come to her aid. The Nights are here. They came back for me. I can’t ignore that.

“Zee!” She yells. “You can fight him. You’re the best, aren’t you? Zee! Why are you letting them take you away … Zee … please,” she’s sobbing now. “Don’t let them kill you.”

But they won’t kill me, Ada. They’re here to take me back.

“I’ll be okay,” I return. “I – “

“Shut your mouth,” the Night says and slams his hand across my lips. I see Ada crawling toward me with what little strength she has. The sky, which was dark with the romp of the night, has at last begun to reveal the morning’s shine. Streams of blue and purple rest over the horizon like thousands of flowerbeds in spring. And then, as if to wash away the black stains of fire, beautiful white snowflakes fall onto the bedraggled people of Shin. The last thing I hear before the Night strikes my head to unconsciousness is Ada, who screams the wrong name for the umpteenth time.