THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝟐𝟎

This was my wish:

To change the nature of omens.

Every Omen that understands their guilt and is regretful, will be healed. Any Omen who harbours no guilt and no remorse, won't be healed.

Esp might have felt guilt once, when she was a girl like me. But the Esp I grew up with was blind to the idea, callous to the thought. All she wanted was to hurt.

So the omen gave her what she wanted. She hurt and hurt until the end.

This is what happens after:

Gaia and my anchor are lost to the portal, though I don't think about them as being lost. They're home.

Many Omens lose their stains, though they do not regain the things they lost to their stains, like their arms or legs, their sight, their minds. My wish did not cure everything.

A week is spent in clearing out rubble, of ruins, of debris. The temple is slowly, surely, put back to rights. A city-wide funeral is held in honour of the deceased – the guardians and authorities that gave their lives against the omen monsters, the acolytes and Suns and unfortunate bystanders.

Brother Marat also died in the attack, protecting the whistlers. They mention him especially in the eulogy, saying that he was kind and wise and strong, even to the end, and I remember the time he had lain his old hand on the top of my head, and know he must've been.

I try not to cry.

Yashi is alive, and so is Sister Ena. Rama and Roaz and Frea are fine. We don't speak to each other at the funeral, partly because no one knows how exactly to treat me. No one knows what I am anymore.

In the past, those that won wishes became something like stars themselves, icons, celebrities, heroes.

But how could an Omen be a star? How could an Omen become a hero?

The only one who interacts with me is Yashi. She weaves her hands at me and asks about Naqi, and I tell her that he's being looked after at the hospital, and my wish should have taken his stain away, too, though I don't know about his wounds.

But I can't go myself to check, to see. I don't think people would allow me to take off, not now.

She says, you'll see him soon. She says, I'll visit him with you, after everything.

Debate happens around what should be done with me.

I was Omen, one that colluded with Esp, and I ended the life of a Veil.

But I am also a champion of the Decade-Races, one whose wish brought an end to the Omen threat. I've forever changed the nature of stains. Things, from now on, will never be the same.

Ten years is what they decide on, in the end.

That is my verdict.

For ten years, I am to be exiled from the city of Tall Titan, and three of those years will be served on the farm-colony of the Eurydice moon. My service order there, or community restitution, is to work the fields without pay.

My stationing was something Lumi's mother herself asked for. I don't know why. Maybe she knows how much it'll hurt me, seeing her.

My remaining seven years are to be spent on other moons and colonies, doing compulsory unpaid work, or if I am paid, it would be meager, laughable. I would be put to cleaning or sorting or whatever else the authorities deem best.

And then after my years are served, I can return to Tall Titan.

I can return to Naqi.