Rehema looked up at the sky. Although she wasn't looking directly at the sun, the scorching sunlight still made even a Cursed Child like her squint her eyes slightly in pain.
But she didn't stop, because in this world filled with despair, only the blue sky allowed her to live a little longer. It was also a rare moment of rest for Rehema.
Unfortunately, a moment is a moment precisely because it only exists for a brief instant.
"Rehema, it's time to go to the factory!"
"Mhm..."
Hearing the call from a distance, Rehema stood up, looking at the sky with lingering attachment, but ultimately having to look down.
The Gastrea War had ended, and most nations were destroyed. But that didn't mean all the citizens of those destroyed nations had died or turned into Gastrea.
A portion of people, whether fortunately or unfortunately, managed to survive and became dependent on the nations that still existed.
They were all divided and placed into small colony areas, existing as industrial towns dependent on the large, safe areas. These colonies existed solely for the purpose of industrial manufacturing, varanium extraction, and serving as a "buffer" to slow down the Gastrea if any invasion waves occurred.
The outer parts of the colony were surrounded by vast fences and walls. They looked sturdy, but against the ferocious Gastrea, they were nothing more than wallpaper. Those leaders certainly wouldn't be generous enough to equip these colonies with varanium.
To put it in perspective, those fences didn't seem to be used to prevent Gastrea invasion; they looked more like they were preventing the people inside from escaping.
And so, the exiled refugees seeking survival jumped from one hell to another. They went from being hunted to working fourteen hours a day, always fearing that a wave of Gastrea would pour into the area.
In the factory, Rehema and countless other children stood along a giant assembly line. These lines were used to transport gun components, and the job of these children was to assemble the parts into a complete gun.
Rehema monotonously detached and attached parts, until she saw the scrawny foreman walking, clasping his hands behind his back.
The foreman quickly moved behind the girl, his tall, lanky body slowly descending, pressing close to her ear.
"Rehema, we meet again."
Feeling the man's breath on her skin, Rehema felt an icy chill, even wanting to vomit. When the foreman's arm began twirling her hair, Rehema held his hand back.
With the strength of a Cursed Child, even in an extremely weakened state, she could easily overpower the strength of a normal person.
"Oh, just as I suspected. Rehema, concealing your Cursed Child identity?"
The foreman chuckled, witnessing the flash of horror in Rehema's eyes.
She quickly let go of his hand.
"What... what exactly do you want?!"
"Nothing, my little girl... just come to my room tonight..."
The foreman reached up to Rehema's face, but his hand was sharply pushed away by the girl's hand. It was a final attempt to preserve her dignity as a human being.
That refusal made the man's face change; his smiling face turned into peak malice, and he immediately delivered a slap across Rehema's cheek. The girl lost her balance and fell, then he stomped on her body repeatedly as if to vent his anger.
The other children either didn't dare to look or were indifferent, because this scene happened as often as daily meals.
Finally, when the shift ended, it was pitch dark.
Rehema left the assembly plant with a body full of injuries. Although her day's wages were deducted, she still had to work until the end of the shift. Otherwise, she would definitely be fired.
That scrawny man had previously chased her, wanting to humiliate her, but she had managed to get away. She didn't expect him to not only become a foreman but the foreman of her factory.
Rehema was expressionless. She used the little money remaining in her pocket to buy two loaves of bread and walked home.
Looking at the small house with a light on, a flicker of peace crossed Rehema's eyes. She tidied herself up a bit, hiding the bruises on her body, and then cheerfully went inside.
"Sister Rehema!"
Inside the house, two children, a boy and a girl, shouted in unison. Rehema smiled, giving each of them a loaf of bread.
"Eat up, Onuris, Oseye."
"Aren't you eating, Sister Rehema?"
Her younger brother Onuris innocently asked. Rehema smiled, petting the boy's head.
"I already ate. Both of you must finish it."
"Yes, Sister Rehema."
Looking at the happy smiles on the lips of her siblings, Rehema almost felt that the dull, persistent pain beneath her skin was no longer hurting.
These two five-year-old twins were the last things her mother left her. Both were normal humans, so at least they could have a brighter future than a Cursed Child like Rehema.
For love, for responsibility, she took on the task of caring for these three mouths to feed. She hoped for nothing else, only that both children could survive and escape this hellish place.
"Sister Rehema! Look at my painting!"
Her younger sister Oseye began demonstrating her painting, but it was just the girl using a wooden stick to draw lines on slabs of clay.
Rehema used to love painting, especially the sky, but her calloused hands had long forgotten how to hold a paintbrush.
The small house occasionally emitted innocent laughter, like a weak spark amidst an endless blizzard in this world.
The next day.
Rehema met the scrawny foreman again, but she didn't know if he had changed his mind because he didn't run over to harass her, only quietly watching from a distance. Although Rehema felt extremely uncomfortable, this was still much better than before.
Thus, Rehema's ordinary day passed.
On her way home, Rehema saw a fire blazing. She approached to see a group of people dumping the corpses into a mass grave and setting them on fire.
In this colony, death was as common as a daily meal. Some died from industrial poisoning, some from accidents, some from attempting to escape, and some from hunger.
Because processing the dead in the traditional way was too cumbersome and too expensive, the management's method here was to gather them all in one place, and when there were enough, throw them all into a mass grave and burn them.
The soldiers just kept throwing bodies down. Everyone's face was rigid like a statue, without any emotion, as if what they were throwing down had never been human, but merely a pile of soulless, hollow, and worthless flesh.
Among them, Rehema saw the body of a child thrown down along with the doll still held tightly in its arms. Finally, the flames appeared, consuming everything, and nothing remained but dust and ashes.
Rehema's eyes flickered.
This was reality.
This was hell.