Luke might as well add mind-reader to his resume of powers because he always found himself lurking inside somebody's thoughts.

The Divine Blaze has a side effect, especially when used by a Nef to subside an enemy. The victim of the Divine Blaze may fall either dead or into a sleep-induced state, but the caster must experience the most painful memory the victim had to endure, through their own eyes, and with no deviation from the past.

Luke was now Jurgen. He was six years old. He was walking to school with his younger brother, but something was wrong with Jurgen's eyesight. The world to him seemed cloudy, as if he was viewing it through cataracts. His hearing was muffled like he was wearing noise-canceling headphones.

But the one thing Luke could make out was a golden bird high in the sky. It looked as majestic as a swan, but it had talons instead of webbed feet—a mixture of compassion and ire.

Jurgen's eyesight was like a hawk when he stared at the bird. The bird flew higher towards a bright light that revealed the tiniest micro fabric of a cloth that belonged to an entity hidden amongst a mist. The more he followed the bird the more of the greater image Jurgen could see, but it still wasn't enough. It was like trying to stand back and view the entirety of the Sistine Chapel one pixel at a time, and each dot only showed itself after hours of staring at it.

On occasion the hazy world around him would distract him. He'd see a woman from time to time cry on his shoulders. He'd see a man get frustrated and shake him awake as if he was sleeping. Some kid named Bernar called this woman and man mom and dad, and they always referred to Jurgen and him as brothers.

"Watch out for your older brother," his dad would charge the four-year-old. The parents worked long hours to pay for the best capsules they put inside Jurgen's mouth every morning and night. They were hardly at the house. Bernar would try to teach him to speak, but Jurgen always avoided his gaze.

All these memories flooded in as Jurgen and Bernar walked home from school. Parents who worked long shifts couldn't pick up their children, and this was Germany—a liberal westernized nation where violence was nowhere near as bad as other nations. It wasn't weird to see parents sending their children to school by themselves on foot while they went to work.

They always took the alleyway. It was a shortcut to their school. It cut five minutes from their walk and it wasn't scary. Graffiti was thrown up on the walls, but it showed men and women of different colors holding hands as the face of a new Germany.

And as if the wall art came to life, four college-age individuals were coming in their direction. One was black, another was Arabian, a third was white with ginger hair, and a fourth was Asian, possibly from Korea. The four stumbled after a Wednesday night that clearly wasn't spent studying.

When they spotted the two blond boys, one with blue eyes the other with milky white eyes, walking down the alleyway, they started shouting insults at them.

"Pure-bloods," the ginger-head boy said.

"Parents are probably racist, cis-gendered, sexists who spit on people like us," said the Korean girl who looked like she was cross-dressing as a man.

"Probably the type that tried to kick my mother out of the country because of where she came from," the Arabian man spoke.

"And look at the poor boy there," said the black woman pointing at Jurgen. "If that thing was my baby, I'd probably have it aborted to spare it such a miserable existence."

Bernar held Jurgen's hand and it was shaking. In the other hand, he held a plush toy of a black eagle with its wings spread. They tried to keep walking past them.

"Where do you think you're going pure-bloods?" ginger-head shouted at them.

Bernar started moving his stubby legs faster—before they recognized them. He clutched his toy close to his chest, and reeled in Jurgen's hand close to his body, like a fisherman trying desperately to keep the line from snapping.

But it was too late. "Hey, aren't they the kids of one of them politicians?" the black woman spoke.

"Oh yeah," the Korean girl agreed as she stumbled like a tornado between two mountains. "Those crazy far-right people that want to create a better Germany by kicking our kind out and, what was it their father said—shoot us as we come off the boats?"

"Yeah, he's even holding their symbol," the Arabic man pointed to the bird in Bernar's hand.

The ginger white boy threw himself in front of them and snatched the toy from Bernar's hand. "Let's see if they like it if we pick on their children for a change," he said with a slur. He smelled like stale wheat and piss.

They ripped Bernar from Jurgen's hands. Jurgen was spared seeing the misery his brother had to endure. He was too focused on the pretty golden bird in the sky.

But he heard a voice cry out for his name. "Ju-Ju help me. Ju-Ju please."

"Shut up you purist," someone amongst the group spoke, but it didn't matter who because they all agreed with the statement. To counteract one extreme, another was necessary.

"Ju-Ju," the voice crumbled. "Get mommy and daddy."

Ju-Ju's eye twitched. He wanted to take its eyes off of the bird. Maybe something more pressing—more important was taking place next to him that he could spare a second away from following the bird into the clouds.

But all he could manage was a twitch. The bird demanded too much attention. It was just too enticing to muddle with the hazy world around him.

Then he heard one of the voices laugh. "Guys, who's the dude with the wicked tail?"

"Shouldn't have hit that blunt so hard," one of the girls said.

Jurgen heard some screams and feet fleeing. But they were muffled as he stared up at the glowing bird. Then an old man with blood red robes appeared in front of him. He had long snow-white hair that stretched down to his lower back. He had white feathered wings, and cherry red lips.

He offered Jurgen a purple fruit. "Free yourself from the mental prison," the old man spoke with a strong deep voice—like someone who would narrate durable truck commercials.

Jurgen ate the fruit and saw the light begin to be covered by a thick storm cloud. The golden bird was lost in the clouds and the reality around him that had once looked so hazy had started to become clearer. The noises of traffic outside the alleyway, the sounds of sirens, the voice of the man...

The final breath of his baby brother. "Ju-Ju..."

Jurgen cried as he entered into this world, but it wasn't tears for a new life but the loss of one.

"Avenge Bernar," said the cherry lipped man. "Save others from the same suffering you had to endure. When you are ready, I will come searching for you."

Then Jurgen collapsed to the ground.

When he opened his eyes, they had loaded him onto a stretcher. A man wearing a black jacket and purple gloves was zipping up a large black duffle bag. Jurgen was so confused. Where was the golden bird? Where was he? Where were mom and dad?

His eyes spotted the face of the boy in the body bag. His blue eyes were open, but they had no light in them. They stared at the sky and never moved. Blood coated his cheek and blond hair. Then Jurgen watched as his brother's body bag was zipped shut.

A tear leaked from his soul.

A day in the hospital was all that was needed to recover. His mother and father were standing outside his hospital room, arguing with one another. The mother sent the father away with a wave of her hand, casting off their relationship. It was his political extremism, his public image, that had brought too much attention to their family. Now look at where that had gotten them.

His father retired from politics and disappeared from Jurgen's life. His mother died a year later from grief. Jurgen was saved from his mental condition and firmly grounded in our reality, but at what cost?

Jurgen shuffled from home to home. Eventually a family adopted him in America. Images of Jurgen getting into fights with other kids reeled through like a fast motion picture. They had found out about his younger brother who died on his behalf because he was too "retarded." They called him a coward. He changed from school to school, but the verbal attacks, his nickname as the cowardly Nazi had spread.

He just couldn't take it anymore. He fought back, constantly getting into trouble. On one occasion, it was claimed by his classmates that he was tormenting minorities, levitating rocks in the air and pelting them at little black and brown kids.

His foster parents didn't know what to do. That's when they got a visit from a representative from a special school that can handle his kind. A "boarding school," up in the Rockies. But they will have to sacrifice seeing their child.

It was a blessing sent by God. The foster parents were all too willing to push the problem into someone else's hands.

When he learned of the Garden Run, he hated the notion that only a few children have the opportunity to liberate their minds from the mental cages the Gaze confined them in. Why not share the fruit with everyone?

And that's when the angel in white came to him and made him a proposition. "You will be selected to go on the next Garden Run. Bring us as much fruit and herbs you can from the Garden at all costs. This will be used to strike back at the indifferent God who allowed your little brother to die without so much as batting an eyelash." The angel turned revealing a squiggly tail with an arrowhead point from the back of his robe. Then he disappeared.

Avenge Bernar, he thought.

And avenge he shall, no matter the cost, even if it meant losing the only place he could lie his head down at night.

But the nerve of sending him with that Asian guy—Xyi. Jurgen hated him. He always got at him. Michael was tolerable, but Xyi was unbearable. Xyi called him an evil monster for making fun of "retards." Jurgen never saw it as a jest, but as a matter-of-fact because he too was one and it was because he was debilitated by God—by that Tyrant who wants everyone to worship him because he did us one favor and constantly holds it over our heads. It's one thing to be given life and taken care of. It's another to be given life and abandoned.

And God had abandoned him, and all the others like him.

He would save them, by picking one fruit at a time. George, Henry, Selena, Elena...

They were just the beginning.

The only regret he had—the single thing that will bug him all the days he'll suffer in JUG is that he didn't add Luke's name to that list.