Chapter 14: Fake Church (3)

The ones who followed in after were a mother and daughter.

“……”

Worn-out clothes.

Shoulders slumped with fatigue.

And a shadowed expression.

The two of them looked like a textbook example of people who had weathered the harsh storms of this bleak world.

“Um…”

The woman who stepped in first looked easily past fifty.

Wrinkles, layered deep with time and hardship, spread across her face like a net.

Her rough, ashen skin clearly bore the marks of a life of labor, long devoid of any care.

But most noticeable were her hands.

Thick, calloused fingers.

Nails cut short, stained with something that wouldn’t wash out.

With those hands, the woman kept anxiously fiddling with the edge of her clothes, unable to hide her nervousness.

Her slightly bulging eyes darted restlessly around the unfamiliar space.

It was the guarded air of someone used to reading the room—the demeanor of a person who had lived her life in low places, constantly conscious of how others saw her.

She fidgeted by the entrance, unsure whether to step forward or turn and walk back out.

Then the man who had brought them here muttered curtly:

“What’re you standing around for? Sit down, already.”

Startled, the woman grabbed her daughter’s arm and scurried forward, like someone who wasn’t sure she had permission to breathe.

The man motioned toward a ragged sofa across the room, and the woman nearly tiptoed over to it.

She perched halfway on the seat, pulling her daughter tightly beside her.

Then, glancing around once more, she finally opened her mouth with a trembling voice.

“Um… excuse me…”

It was hard to say how many times she moved her lips before the first words actually came out.

“Is it really…”

Her voice sounded younger than she looked.

Perhaps life had aged her far beyond her years.

“Is it really true that… if we believe in the Radiant Lord, any illness… can be healed?”

Her eyes trembled with desperation—and fear.

Despite her gaunt appearance and haggard face, the woman didn’t look terminally ill herself.

Which meant the problem likely lay with the girl seated beside her, as still as a doll.

“…….”

She looked to be about middle school age.

A bit on the skinny side, but with neatly arranged features—a classically pretty girl.

And yet… something felt off.

‘Her eyes…’

The girl’s gaze was fixed on a spot in empty space.

Her clear, wide eyes looked like polished glass—vacant, unable to hold light.

She didn’t move.

She only held tightly to her mother’s rough hand with her small fingers.

As if afraid.

As if that touch was her only refuge in a world full of darkness.

It looked like she clung to her mother’s warmth as if it were the only light left in the void.

“…….”

Watching the scene, I found myself closing my eyes tightly without realizing.

This was a godless era.

A society built entirely on reason and logic.

And yet… there were still people who clung to the sugarcoated promises of cults like this.

Were they simply foolish?

So naïve it defied belief?

No.

Maybe… they were just that desperate.

Maybe they had nothing else left to lean on.

Pushed to the farthest edge of survival, unable to see even one step ahead…

And when all that remained in front of them was a rotting rope dangled from nowhere, they had no choice but to grab it.

---

“Ah, hello? I, um, I run a small salon near 13th Street. My name is Karen.”

The woman paused, then gently wrapped an arm around the girl beside her.

“And this is my daughter, Sophia.”

At her mother’s introduction, the girl bowed automatically.

But her eyes still drifted in empty space, unfocused.

Karen’s face briefly clouded with sorrow. But she quickly forced it away, rummaging in her bag as if to change the subject.

She carefully pulled something out and unfolded it.

It was a watercolor painting on a slightly worn sheet of paper.

A blue sky. A green field.

A distant skyline of the city, delicately rendered.

Even to an untrained eye, it was a well-made piece of art.

“Sophia drew this.”

Karen’s exhausted face lit up with a bright smile.

It wasn’t fake—it was a smile filled with pure pride and joy.

“She’s good, isn’t she? People always said there was something special about her drawings—even when she was little.

The neighbors, the teachers… everyone said she had real talent.”

Karen continued, her eyes still on the painting, her tone brimming with pride.

Her voice gained more energy with each word.

“Why, just two years ago she won the grand prize at a big art competition hosted by the education board. That’s how she got accepted as a special scholarship student at… you know, the City Art Academy!”

Omega Detroit City Art Academy.

A dream school for any aspiring young artist in the city—utterly out of reach for most.

Not only did it offer the best art education, but graduating practically guaranteed success.

A huge number of paintings that sold for massive sums at the top floor galleries of towering skyscrapers came from its alumni.

As Karen spoke, she unconsciously straightened her shoulders.

Her own life had never escaped the back alleys, but in her daughter… she placed all her hopes.

“To be honest… I’ve always felt indebted to this child.
Raising her in a place like this, I could barely feed or clothe her properly.
But Sophia never once complained. Not even when things were hard. She’s… really such a good daughter, isn’t she?”

Guilt and affection flickered across her face.

“I never sent her to any art schools.
But she used to just sit and sketch in her notebook by herself.
And somehow… her talent just bloomed like this.
As a mother, I’m truly, truly proud of her.”

She gently stroked Sophia’s hair, a gesture filled with boundless love.

“Not a single day has gone by that I haven’t been grateful to have her.
No matter how tired I was after work, just seeing Sophia’s face made it all melt away.
She’s the greatest gift of my life.”

But then, her expression clouded.

“But…”

After a long pause, she finally spoke again.

“She has glaucoma.”

Glaucoma—a disease caused by increased intraocular pressure that slowly, chronically damages the optic nerve, eventually leading to vision loss. And once the nerve is damaged, there’s currently no way to regenerate it with modern medicine.

Tears welled in Karen’s eyes as she said it.

“Sophia… she’s so used to hiding her pain that even when her vision started fading, she didn’t tell me right away. She was worried I’d get upset… she’s just that kind…”

Her voice broke into trembling sobs.

Thick tears streamed down her rough cheeks.

“If I’d just noticed a little sooner…
If I’d paid a little more attention to her…!
If I hadn’t worked late every night trying to save up for tuition…
If I hadn’t made excuses about being tired, and just looked her in the eyes and asked about her day—just once—!”

As Karen wept, Sophia gently placed her small hand on her mother’s shoulder.

The girl said nothing, only offered warmth.

It was silent comfort.

But being comforted by her own blind daughter only made Karen’s shame deeper.

She lowered her head and could no longer speak.

“I was foolish…
I didn’t even know what really mattered.
I thought if I just made money, everything would be okay…”

After a long while, she finally calmed herself and spoke again.

“The doctors said… if I drain all my savings, I can barely afford the surgery for ocular implants.”

Ocular implants—artificial eyes made possible by advanced technology.

In some ways, they could even outperform natural sight.

But Karen’s face remained somber.

“Yes… with those implants, she’ll be able to see again. But… she won’t be able to be a painter anymore.”

She struggled to explain further.

What the modern art world valued now.

Artistic goals had always changed with the times.

Long ago, technical realism was prized.

But the invention of the camera had overturned that paradigm.

As machines surpassed human ability to recreate reality, art shifted to abstraction.

But now even that was threatened by AI, which could interpret and express abstract ideas with equal or greater skill.

And so, the current art world had finally turned to the one thing machines could never replicate: humanity.

The imperfect, intangible essence unique to people.

Feelings. Sensations. Internal and external expressions of the soul.

Only purely human expressions were now considered to have true artistic value.

“And that’s why schools like the City Art Academy… don’t accept students with artificial body parts.
Even if you’re talented—it doesn’t matter.
Only perfectly ‘human’ children are allowed through those gates.”

That was where the invisible class barrier began, Karen said.

Technically, the school was open to anyone with talent.

But in reality, almost every admitted student was from the upper class.

Because in poor districts, kids were often sick from polluted food and environments.

It was common to replace organs or limbs with synthetic parts.

And that was the end of it.

In the end, your fate was decided by where you were born.

In this massive city, climbing the social ladder was nearly impossible.

“But… even so, parents still dream.
That their child might live a better life than they did.
Wanting to show your beloved child a brighter world—it’s only natural.”

Karen’s gaze returned to her daughter. Her eyes were full of hope.

“My Sophia… she’ll be a great artist.
Not someone who wastes her life doing odd jobs in these backstreets like me.
She’ll paint works that even the rich people living at the top of those skyscrapers will admire.
I just want her… to live a life she can be proud of.”

Finally, Karen leaned forward and brought her hands together.

“So please… if believing in the Radiant Lord can really heal her sight—please, I’m begging you.
I’ll give you everything I have.”

With trembling hands, she pulled a worn credit card from her bag and held it out.

On the card’s tiny display, a long list of deposits popped up—10 credits, 20 credits—day after day, year after year.

The record of a mother’s labor.

Her savings for tuition—or perhaps for surgery.

The physical proof of her hope.

She bowed deeply, holding out her only card.

“This is everything I have. It’s my one wish.
If you want me to spend the rest of my life as a servant of the church, I will.
Whatever you ask, I’ll do it.
So please…”

Karen’s voice turned into a desperate plea.

“Save her. Please… just save my daughter…”

And in the heavy silence that followed…

Only her prayer echoed softly through the room.