Light.
That was his name.
A name filled with irony, perhaps even cruelty—because for as long as he could remember, his world had been getting darker.
By all outward accounts, Light was ordinary. A final-year high school student. Average family. Decent neighborhood. He wasn't a genius, but he wasn't a fool either. He had decent looks, stood taller than most of his peers, and people often called him "a good kid." Quiet, respectful, sharp when it came to common sense.
But beneath that surface… something had always been off.
Every time he sat down to study, he understood it. In the moment, it made perfect sense—like reading an open book. But come the next day, it was gone. Not just the details… the memory of understanding itself vanished, as if a lock had been placed on his mind overnight, sealing everything away. He could almost feel the "file" in his brain being erased. He remembered trying. He remembered studying. But not the knowledge.
At first, he thought it was stress. Then laziness. Then fate.
But none of that made sense. Because Light had always tried.
He wasn't dumb. He had a strong sense of logic, picked up on things quickly, and could hold deep conversations with adults, teachers, and peers alike. He had dabbled in games once—nothing clicked. Tried sports—failed again. Tried writing, even meditation. The result was always the same.
Everything slipped through his fingers.
And then came the final blow.
He failed his final year.
He remembered staring at the result sheet, unable to breathe. His name sat there, surrounded by numbers that confirmed what he already feared. He had failed. Again.
He thought of trying again—repeating the year. Studying better. Doing everything differently.
But something inside had already broken.
Not because of the exam.
But because of the people.
The same voices that once praised him now whispered just out of earshot. Some mocked him behind his back. Some smiled at him with pity. His relatives said nothing cruel, but their silence screamed volumes. Even at home, no one said much—but the quiet around the dinner table was heavy and suffocating.
The praise had vanished. The respect faded. And Light?
He simply... shut down.
He stopped making eye contact. Stopped trying to explain. He moved through life like a phantom. He still smiled, still nodded, still responded when spoken to—but every time he tried again, he failed again.
In everything.
One by one, he tried new skills. New hobbies. New paths.
One by one, they collapsed.
His body, once fit, became sluggish. His confidence evaporated. Even his first love—someone he had silently adored—faded away with the passing seasons, though her name still echoed in his mind. She had once smiled at him like he mattered. Now she probably didn't even remember.
Light knew he was becoming someone he didn't recognize.
Once cheerful, now lazy. Once sharp, now numb.
He felt like a discarded version of who he could have been. A backup file no one opened anymore.
And yet, he kept living.
Because that's all he had left—his life.
One night, unable to sleep and desperate to breathe, Light stepped outside. No destination. No plan. Just his hoodie, his phone, and his earphones.
He wandered under the moonlight, following the road between the fields. The wind swept past his face. Cold. Freeing. For once, he felt weightless—no people, no expectations. Just music, the stars, and the emptiness of a quiet world.
The night was quiet—eerily so.
A narrow road split the darkened fields like a silver scar under the moonlight. Flanked by rows of old, scattered trees, it twisted through farmland on the outskirts of a small, almost-forgotten village in the heart of the Mid State. The wind carried the scent of fresh earth and distant rain, and the world seemed paused—holding its breath in anticipation.
A young man named Light walked alone along this empty road.
Earphones in. Music playing softly. His hands tucked into his hoodie pockets. He breathed in the cold, night air like a man trying to feel alive again. It was the kind of air that pierced through clothes and brushed against the soul. His eyes flicked between the flickering streetlights and the stars above, wondering, as he often did, how life had managed to slip so far off course.
He walked. Thought. Imagined.
"What if I had spoken up that day?"
"What if I had tried harder last year?"
"What if I had told her how I felt?"
They were just fantasies. Ghosts of past versions of him that had never existed.
But tonight, they felt heavier—like echoes of a future he had somehow betrayed.
He looked up at the stars.
"Am I the kind of person who was always meant to lose?"
And then, he saw them.
Seven figures. Walking toward him from the other end of the road.
At first, he thought they were just late-night travelers. Maybe tourists, though it was absurd—no one came out this far, especially not foreigners. There was nothing around but farms, silence, and old air.
But as they approached, Light's stomach twisted. Something was wrong.
Their clothes weren't right. Not local. Not even modern. Their expressions—calm, knowing, and unsettling—felt like watching statues that had learned to move.
And the air around them was... off.
The wind still blew, but the trees no longer swayed. The leaves were frozen mid-motion. The world felt paused—like a game in glitch.
They walked without hurry. And then—they stopped. Right in front of him.
Light blinked. "Hey! Can't you see I'm walking here?"
No response. Just soft chuckles. As if they found him amusing.
That's when he noticed it.
One of them raised a hand and pointed at something behind him.
He turned.
And saw himself.
Lying on the ground.
Still. Lifeless.
His mouth opened, but no words came.
"What the hell...?"
A wave of cold washed over him—not just from the wind, but from something deeper. Something unnatural. He looked at the figure lying in the dirt again. It was him. Down to the same clothes, the same scar on his left wrist.
"I'm... dead?"
One of the figures finally spoke. His voice was deep, but oddly soothing. "No. Not quite. What you see there is the future that should have been. A version of you that didn't escape fate. But somehow... you tricked death. You slipped through."
Another pointed toward the ground where the body had been.
Gone.
Vanished like mist.
Light stumbled back. "What the hell is going on?"
The figure stepped closer. "We are your future."
The others followed. Seven of them in total. Each one strangely distinct, yet clearly bound to the same otherworldly force.
"You've earned a rare chance," one said. "Something that happens once every few millennia."
Light shook his head. "A chance for what?"
"To choose," the first one said. "To pick one among us."
Another continued, "Each of us holds a gift. A powerful power. We are not names... we are what your world once called the original sins."
He looked at each of them as they introduced themselves:
Pride. Greed. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. Wrath. Sloth.
Light stared at them, bewildered. "Those are... sins. Not names."
One of them smiled, as if amused. "Yet it is we who shaped your world."
Another added, "Choose one of us, and we will offer you a gift unlike any other. A power that only you will wield. In this entire world."
Light squinted. "Nothing comes free. What do you want in return?"
They chuckled again. "You earned this by defying fate itself. What you now possess is called a Karma Point—a divine glitch, if you will. Only one person in a generation, sometimes in centuries, receives it. The lucky... or the cursed."
"Anyone can get it," another said. "An unborn child. A dying old man. A beggar. A king. But tonight... it belongs to you."
Light took a step back. "If I choose... what exactly do I get?"
"We cannot tell you that," Pride said calmly. "Only that it will change everything. Some powers are blessings. Others... burdens. It will depend on who you are."
He looked at them again. Each stood silently, hands at their sides, eyes watching him like hunters waiting for the prey to step forward.
He raised his hand. Slowly.
Pointed at each of them, one by one.
Pride. Greed. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. Wrath. Sloth.
He paused. He thought.
And then… he chose.