Clare Wu (10) | STAFF REPORTER
Yin and yang, night and day. Deep, dark shades of midnight black among the purest of white. Pieces, standing straight and proud, unmoving, unfeeling. A king – To be protected at all costs. The queen – to rule in his place. A board – made of obsidian and ivory, ornate but so much more than just a decoration.
A boy, dark skin, pale hair, yin and yang, sits at a table. Before him, a game of chess, played with heavy pieces, gambling away lives and souls. His intelligence is unmatched, but his eyes are always icy, distant. He moves the cool, heavy pieces accordingly, with unsettling grace. Sometimes he spares his opponent, sometimes he takes their king, unbasing their support, sometimes, he chases them, a faint outline of a smile on his lips as he watches jerky, desperate plays – irrelevant, in any case, he thinks to himself, signaling checkmate, for they always fall in the end.
Here, in this room of rotting memories, forgotten hearts, unnatural beings, a boy, made solely of stars and moonlight and the empty space that swallows them both sits, choosing victors and picking sides, deciding who deserves to live and who deserves to die, in this inconsequential world of ours. He chooses his victors carefully, for only the best deserve his mercy.
His name is Karma.