The Ignited Flame

"Are you... a god?"

Tom's voice echoed through the empty dreamscape, trembling slightly with curiosity.

He looked up at the figure shrouded in a dark cloak and asked his question.

"No, child. Like you, I am only human..."

As he spoke, the man slowly removed his hood. Beneath it was an utterly ordinary face.

Rough skin, crow's feet and forehead creases carved by labor and time, lips somewhat chapped from long silence.

It was a face Tom saw every day—on his father, his neighbors, and countless numb figures in the factory.

It was the face of a worker.

The immense contrast left Tom even more bewildered.

"Then why did you appear in my dream...?"

He asked in confusion.

"Because you asked a question..."

Tom's body jolted. He understood.

Those thoughts suppressed within his chest, thoughts he himself had believed were merely fleeting bursts of indignation, actually carried such weight.

As though he had grasped the last straw that could save him, he poured out all his pain and confusion.

"Then can you tell me the answer? Why are we treated like this?

"Why do we work like livestock, yet live worse than dogs? What should we do?"

His voice grew louder and louder, thick with tears—the despair that had accumulated for far too long.

The mysterious man did not answer directly. He merely shook his head.

"That is something you must figure out for yourselves..."

He extended a hand and gently pressed his palm against Tom's forehead.

A cool, indescribable sensation seeped into him, like the first spring rain falling upon parched, cracked earth.

His chaotic, painful, furious thoughts began to fall into order beneath the guidance of that power.

"Think, observe, speak..."

"When you find your first companion, you will know what to do."

At dawn, the biting cold