Silent Descent: Retrieval

I've heard that elite students say, "Don't mine the gold. Sell the shovels, sell the dreams, sell the information, sell the systems of return."

If their mining goes well, give time and profit.

Those dreams don't necessarily have to be true.

They just have to feel like they are.

When I was just a little boy, I lost my mother. I was only a child, without knowledge of death or life back then.

But, to be honest, I didn't feel anything even after my father passed away. He was caught in the middle of a conspiracy to eliminate some medium-sized companies. His situation worsened after they took all the company's shares, and since then, he had to rely on the savings he had in his bank account.

He bought some grocery shops and cafes; even so, our life was good. I didn't know what could have struck him down.

He was my father. He did all this for me, just so I could live a better life than he had lived.

What was the word again? Yeah, pathetic. My father was pathetic. He lived a fake dream. They sold him fake dreams.

He shared those dreams with people he loved. And now they were dead. Only I remained.

Before his downfall, he managed to get me into a prestigious high school, a private school reserved only for top-notch geniuses and the children of the rich the nation's future leaders.

As for me, I had no intent to lead a nation or to be here in the first place. I didn't have the slightest interest in competing against these so-called geniuses.

But, one way or another, I found myself in the last year of high school. My rank among the students was 36; I managed to enter the top 50.

Don't get me wrong I didn't study at all. Maybe that's what we call genius. Me, a genius? I don't recall having such an ability or skill.

Or maybe that's what people call innate intelligence. It happened that I was just too indifferent to even realize that, but I actually turned out to be a genius.

Or at least, that's what I thought.

Compared to whom, though? Those in the top 10?

What if we're all stupid? What if the person ranked 35 is just less stupid than I am?

What if there are people outside, less stupid than we are?

It's hard to differentiate between these things, or maybe it's just about one's way of thinking.

The only thing I'm sure of is that those around me here are living their fake dreams.

Those who study day and night, those who try to reach higher and higher, those who believe hard work could pay off by turning their dreams real—they are all foolish. Everything has been planned beforehand, some by fate and some by people behind the scenes, especially in this so-called "Nation's Private School."

The classes were normal-sized, nothing extravagant. But as for the school as a whole, it was built like a city. It has all you could crave, everything to fulfill your needs.

My name is Kyel, an aloof person, indifferent even deep inside. From a young age, I can't recall the last time I felt happiness, fury, fear, greed, or surprise.

It has always been, "Yes, whatever." There is nothing that could catch me off guard or pique my interest.

I always thought of it as a punishment from heaven for my past mistakes in a previous life. But sometimes, I think of it as a gift from my good deeds in a past life.

Good and bad, virtuous and evil.

If you hurt me, I'll consider it evil and bad.

But for you? It's good and virtuous, by no means.

In today's world, it's easy to decide between those two by their actions.

Who's the victim and who's the culprit? It's common sense, something innate to us. We were born with righteousness.

We don't fear what is familiar to us, what we deeply know, because it's obvious that as human beings, we're going to unite against anything abnormal.

Union.

What gives us the courage to think so? It's that we are at the top of the food chain. Even if the abnormality comes from one of us humans, we could unite against it.

Abundance trumps courage.

Speaking for myself, I think what scares human beings the most is separation.

It's ironic how we humans find joy in being alone, isolated, feeling some peace of self, and then how we feel sadness and grief when we feel alone, unable to be with others.

But these two different feelings are contradictory.

Have you ever asked yourself: Is there something in this world that has no opposite? No sense of contradiction?

Have you come to an answer? Not yet?

Let's put it this way.

What do humans fear the most? Death, yes. The thought of vanishing with no final destination.

But you see, there's an opposite of death, which is life, that most of us crave and wish to live to the fullest.

But that doesn't fit the question something that has no opposite?

It's existence.

Where there's no opposite, existence finds its limitless form.

But lately, I've considered, for some reason, that imagination and dreams are the opposite of existence.

I don't know what could have made me think of that. But it's the very thing that made my indifference fluctuate.