Maharlika Mahika // undergoing editing

Act I

I always hated my violet eyes.

It mocks me, this vibrant color present in my irises, that I hold a curse, like everybody present in this race.

They were a sign, an eternal reminder of who I really am, what I am in society.

I am nothing, an absolute nobody, scum. I am only but the dirt on the shoes of the Ordinario and Maharlika.

And I have unusual colored irises to prove my worthless existence.

I look at the fluorescent lights that dot the concrete above us. I sigh at the useless excuse for stars, at the artificial replacement for the sun and its warmth.

These artificial lights of the Ilalim(1), the Underground, prove to the Mahika race that we are deprived of everything the Mataas(2) (the upper castes) enjoys.

We are deprived of the daylight, the sun. We are deprived of the bright sky dotted with white. We are deprived of the inky night sky, filled with stars that form pictures of Cassiopeia, Ursa Major and Minor, and other pictures in the sky. We are deprived of the milky luminescence of the moon.

We only see the faux, gray sky of concrete, and the fluorescent lights that serve as our morning and evening light.

We are deprived of the little treasures of the Mataas, because of our eternal confinement to the Ilalim.

The Ilalim that encages us from the bustling activity of the Kapitolyo(3), the freedom of the Itaas.

I always hated the Ilalim, as much as I hated my eyes. Both were a reminder of what I was, what our race was to the society.

We were outcasts. Freaks. Monsters. Witches. Evil beings that cast evil spells to bring forth evil to Karasuno.

Because of this philosophy, we were forced to be trapped in this concrete underground, no sunlight to make plants thrive, nor animals to tame.

We only survive these limitations because of one thing: Magic.

We cast spells to make agriculture possible, we conjure animals out of thin air to tame for farming or kill for meat. In a single snap of a finger, we make this possible.

Yet, our magic is regarded as a curse. Other people were afraid of our magic that may wreak havoc and destroy the Kingdom. So, to prevent that, we were forced to inhabit here, in this concrete square of limitations.

Our magic was the one that caused all this, this emnity between the Mataas and us Mababa(4). Because of this magic, this violet color present in our eyes, we were shunned as individuals of Karasuno. We hold no right to be called "human" anymore. We are Mahika, and nothing more.

I stay perched on the highest point of the Ilalim, Kapit(5), and stay stiff as I feel the artificial breeze of the wind turbines near the Kapit. I close my eyes as I wish for a new world, a world better than this. Where we are not deprived of everything. Where we are treated like normal people. Where there is no such thing as Mataas and Mababa.

"How long are you going to stay there?"

I hear the voice of my best friend, Mitsuki, that pulled me out of my fantasies of a Mahika Utopia.

I sighed and reached out to the concrete void falsely called a sky by naïve individuals.

"Until we are free from all this nonsense. Until we, Mahika, are treated as equal individuals of the human race." I bluntly said.

It was Mitsuki's turn to sigh, as she laid her hand on my shoulder, tired of hearing the same statement over and over again.

"Jiyuu. Your mother is calling you." she said, and left without saying another word.