Monday started like any other: the alarm's ring, the bathroom routine, rushed breakfast with his mother. She was especially quiet that morning, staring into her coffee.
"Something wrong, Mom?" Lucy asked, spreading butter on toast.
"Nothing, just tired," she said with a brief smile. But the Eyes revealed a denser gray thread than usual, fatigue weighing on her shoulders like invisible stones.
Lucy stayed silent. He didn't want to worry her more, but he filed the detail away for his notebook.
The crisp morning air followed him on his walk to school. He moved slowly, observing passersby, trying to classify threads: blues, greens, yellows… each color with subtle differences. His notebook, already full of notes, was an incomplete map of this new language only he could read.
At school, everything seemed normal—until lunch.
David.
The same boy from the fight with Mark weeks ago. The same whose karma had once revealed the shadow of gluttony.
He sat alone, devouring a tray piled high. Not just his own: there were at least two extra portions beside him, clearly taken from others. His thread, once only dim, was now a storm of darkness spilling into nearby tables.
Lucy squinted. A vision struck: David sneaking bread from the cafeteria, hiding candy under his bed, eating until sick. A ravenous anxiety drove him, as if trying to fill an unfillable void.
Around him, whispers spread. Some laughed behind their hands, others looked with disgust. David ignored it all.
"Look at him… stealing food again," one student muttered.
"He's sick, for sure," another added.
Lucy's stomach knotted. The mockery wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that with each word, David's dark thread pulsed stronger, feeding on their contempt.
"This isn't just a bad habit," Lucy thought. "It's growing."
All afternoon in math class, he couldn't focus. Numbers blurred on the board while his mind returned to David. The dark thread clung to him, staining the classroom air.
After class, Lucy caught him in the hallway.
"Hey, David," he said cautiously.
David turned, eyes red with exhaustion.
"What do you want?"
Lucy hesitated. He couldn't exactly say, I see your sins.
"Just… wanted to check if you're okay."
David barked a bitter laugh.
"Since when do you care?"
Lucy faltered. The black thread quivered, ready to snap.
On his way home, under a dim streetlight, Lucy opened his notebook and scribbled:
David's thread is growing.
It isn't hunger: it's anxiety, emptiness.
Others feed it with mockery.
How do you stop something that feeds on wounds?
He shut the notebook tightly. He knew this was the beginning of something bigger. David wasn't just a classmate with a bad habit. He was Lucy's first true trial.
And echoing faintly, the man's voice returned: "The heir of John Smith. The bearer of the Karmic Eyes."
That night, helping his mother tidy the kitchen, David's image replayed in his head—every bite, every laugh around him, every darkened thread.
Lucy knew the quiet days were over.
Judgment was about to begin.