122 Nightlife 2

I pulled out my marble immediately and opened my inventory full of emergency rations. Ever since I had mistakenly almost starved from the sixth district, I had always carried around extra food. On my screen was ten bars of the chocolate bars made by the best patisseries in the school café that I frequently visited.

The bronze eyes of the child shined as she slid her hands around the wrapping paper made of thin sheets of copper. She looked up at me hesitatingly to ask me if it was really fine for her to eat the precious bar in her hands that was a quarter of her palm. I smiled and lightly patted her head to show her it was fine as she carefully unwrapped the bar to make sure the paper didn't rip. After getting a waft of the strong smell of caffeine, she opened her drooling mouth and took a bite.

Her eyes glistened with tears as the sounds of her munching on the tiny bar echoed throughout the entire building. Soon, no crumb of candy was to be seen as she licked her fingers to get most of the experience. When I took out another piece of dessert to give, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of children instead of the young girl.

The crowd of children were no better dressed than the young girl who pushed smaller children to the front for their turn. Some were no bigger than the age of four, which was the age I was separated from my parents. As the children stared at me with high expectation, I realized this place was their home. They skillfully made no noise when avoiding the junk on the ground, barefoot, hardened with calluses.

Were they all orphans? There was no sign of their guardians as they tugged on my clothes until I ran out of most of the desserts in my inventory. When most of them rubbed their tummies with signs of fullness, I decided this was the perfect timing to ask.

"Where are your parents?" I asked the closest child from me.

"Parents? What's that?" The child tilted his head in confusion.

The child ran away from me as the tallest, yet bony child whose height was similar to Alex came up to me. She was the only one that didn't receive any food due to the younger children who screamed for more. Her shadow was filled with the youngest who sucked on their fingers, unable to speak.

"This place is an asylum for those abandoned," She scanned me from top to bottom.

She struggled not to frown at the fancy ribbons wrapped around my ankles with embellished tiny diamonds in the middle and the sparkling buttons that dazzled the planetarium. I unwrapped one of the ribbons at the end of my leggings to give to her before being stopped by Jules.

I could understand it was hard to trust someone who appeared so privileged in their life to suddenly emerge in their overlooked asylum. I was glad my head was empty of its usual accessories weaved by Luke every morning. It would have made me appear even more distrusting than my current toned down outfit.

"Who knows what they'll do," He indirectly tried to explain to me.

"It seems you know who we are," She walked towards him instead.

"Well, it is an open secret." He shrugged like it was no big thing.

"Explain," I directly looked up at him.

"You don't have to know," Alex interrupted us.

I was the only one who didn't know again. I clenched my fists and hung my head down. It wasn't the first time I felt I as missing out on information that only people born in the first district knew. I was always the last one to figure out the important information and it was almost too late whenever I figured out.

It was strange how the people around me considered I was one of them when I always felt left out in these kinds of situations that kept on repeating as the years increased. Ellen and Shelly only gave me the information when I questioned them. Luke revealed things after it was irreversible like our engagement. Information was never freely given out to me, instead it was kept hidden until discovered.

"Why not?" I almost yelled.

"Everyone else knows except for me," I whispered softly when the children started to get frightened.

"Please tell me," I turned to the girl.

"We're the children who possesses no potential for mana. Even people in the sixth district, although they have no mana themselves, have the tiniest chance of 0.00000000001% for the potential of possessing mana. The authorities place us here for the extreme rare cases that children with no potential for mana are born."

The fake stars in the crumbling planetarium sparkled as she lifted her hand into the roof. She gazed at me with indifference, "no one wants to keep a child that can only live to sixteen".

"This is our tomb, our future gravestone." She looked over her head, at the children who tired themselves to sleep.

They slept on the cold ground, like dead bodies, unmoving from their place. I cringed when the dangerous shards were moved with their bare hands for a space to rest without a care for their bodies.