Urban System in America-Chapter 115 - 114: So... This Is Drawing

What do I see?

He stared at the canvas.

Blank — but not empty. It carried the weight of everything that had been said, everything that had been shown.

He sat before it, with brush in hand.

The brush felt heavier now — not in weight, but in meaning. As though it had been transformed from a simple tool into a question. One that demanded an answer. One that refused silence.

He swallowed hard.

He had no technique. No idea where to start. But something stirred deep within his chest, aching to be released.

Not a beautiful scene.

Not a perfect form.

Just... a truth.

He closed his eyes.

And what rose was not light, but shadow —

a memory, blurred and distant, yet etched into his soul.

A hospital room. Sterile. Cold.

Fluorescent lights buzzing like a swarm of invisible insects.

A newborn’s cry pierced the silence.

A nurse’s soft whispers, muffled through walls.

And then — two figures. Silhouettes at best.

Backs turned.

Walking away.

They never looked back.

He had no faces. No names. Just the weight of abandonment, a quiet ache that had never really gone away. That silence had followed him like a shadow. Even in this new life, the feeling lingered — not loud, not sharp, but quiet, suffocating.

Even in this new life — a life with different parents, different memories — the feeling lingered. Faint, yet constant.

Even though he had the memories of parents in this life, but ultimately these memories were not his. They belonged to someone else.

And he didn’t have parents. Not in this life. Not in the one before. He had been left — abandoned before even being held.

He had been left.

Abandoned before he’d even been held.

No names. No faces. No warmth.

Only the ache of something missing

Even though he had spent years denying it. Suppressing it. Pretending the hole didn’t exist, the gap remained.

The ache remained... in the depth of his soul, where even he didn’t dare to gaze.

A hole shaped like two people who never stayed long enough to become real.

He raised the brush.

It trembled in his grip, but he began to move — slowly, hesitantly.

He dipped the brush into a jar that hadn’t been there before — a clear glass vessel now filled with ink the color of twilight. It shimmered faintly, like it had absorbed the light of stars or the fragments of forgotten dreams.

Then, hesitantly, he raised the brush.

The tip hovered over the canvas.

"Not to impress."

he whispered.

"Not to replicate."

He focused.

"But to see."

And with that, the brush touched the canvas — and the first stroke was made.

Lines emerged, rough and crooked.

It was not perfect.

It was not clean.

But it was honest.

He drew again. And again. Lines, hesitant at first, then firmer. Awkward curves. A wobbly circle. Cross-hatching. A shadow that didn’t quite match the light.

Time lost meaning. The room disappeared.

Only the canvas remained.

At some point, the canvas bore the ghost of a face — or maybe a memory. Something between still life and dream.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t even coherent. But it was real.

Two faceless figures, featureless and distant. A vague, small shape, surrounded by space, too much space, behind them, left alone in the corner.

There were no eyes. No mouths. No setting.

But the emotion bled through the gaps.

Abandonment.

Loss.

And strangely... forgiveness.

The brush moved faster now. His heart beat louder.

He did not cry. But something within him broke — quietly. Like a chain falling off an unseen part of his soul.

He didn’t even know if they were his real parents or just the shadows he’d carried for years. But the canvas caught them. Rough silhouettes — distant, hazy, fading.

The shadows of absence. The silence of being left behind.

He added nothing else. No setting. No details. No warmth.

Just form. Just weight.

Just truth.

By the time he realized what he had drawn, his hands were shaking. His throat burned. His eyes stung — but no tears fell. They had dried out long ago in the corners of that forgotten life.

What remained was something quieter. Something heavier.

A strange peace.

A painful kind of release.

A mark on the world — and on himself.

"TAP"

The brush slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground with a soft tap.

The room was still.

And then, quietly, the air shimmered.

The drawing pulsed faintly, not with beauty, but with resonance — something honest, something seen.

He hadn’t remembered their faces from his previous life — just their absence. But now, sketching their silhouettes, he gave form to a wound he had never named.

A voice to a silence he had never broken.

He leaned back, breath unsteady. chest hollow.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

"So this... is drawing."

Then suddenly, he felt a shift in the air. A presence.

He turned.

The master — the one who seemed to have vanished — stood once more at the edge of the room. Silent. Timeless. Watching.

He stepped forward, slowly, like approaching a sacred altar. His eyes passed over Rex, then moved to the canvas.

He didn’t speak. Not at first.

The silence stretched — deep, weighty, sacred.

Finally, the master nodded — just once.

A motion so small, yet it struck like thunder.

"You have bled," he said at last, voice low and ancient, like stone shaped by time. "Good."

He moved closer, standing at Rex’s side, eyes never leaving the image.

"But bleeding is not enough."

He pointed to the canvas — to the slumped child, to the looming shadows.

"This is pain. Honest, yes. But unformed. Emotion alone is clay. You must carve it into shape."

He looked down at Rex, and in his gaze was neither warmth nor coldness — only truth.

"Form gives it strength. Rhythm gives it soul. Meaning gives it permanence. Only then does the pain become more than yours — it becomes human."

He exhaled — his presence flickering.

"But that’s for another master to teach. You have taken your first step. Now, it is time for me to go."

Rex stared, a storm of emotions raging inside him, yet no words formed. The master chuckled softly at the sight—low and deep, like a distant drumbeat echoing through eternity.

"Do not look so lost," he said. "I may leave now, but I will not be gone."

He reached out and touched the space just above Rex’s heart — not skin, but something beneath it.

"Every line you draw, every stroke you make — I will be there, I will be with you...watching over you."

And with that, he turned, stepping toward the door he had once emerged from opened once more — golden light spilling across the floor like a river of sunlight through stained glass.

He walked into it without hesitation.

And as he passed the threshold, his form began to crumble.

Not as flesh, not as fabric, but as something ancient and eternal returning to dust.

Like chalk in the wind.

Like memory unbound.

Each grain that drifted from him shimmered, catching light from nowhere — tiny stars dissolving into the void.

No ceremony.

No final words.

Only silence... and brilliance.

And in the space he left behind, a glyph ignited — not upon the canvas, but in the air itself. Glowing. Etched into something deeper than vision.

"Core Principle Imprinted:The Essence of Expression"

The system’s voice returned — hushed, awed, no longer smug or artificial.

"You have received the Initiation.

The First Brush has laid your foundation."

(End of Chapter)