Little Light

What We Carry

Morning light never really entered the apartment.

It tried. Pale gray slipped through the thin curtains and laid itself across the floor in weak stripes, but it never reached the corners.

Cain woke before the sun finished failing.

He lay still on his back, staring at the ceiling. The residual pain from the night before was still inside him—Mrs. Han’s slow, heavy grief sitting low in his chest like wet sand. He had carried worse. He would carry worse again.

He moved through the morning routine without thinking. Fill the kettle. Light the stove. Two mugs on the counter—one with the chipped rim that Leo preferred. When the water boiled, he poured it over the cheap tea bags and carried both mugs to the low table. Then he sat on the floor with his back against the couch and waited.

Leo appeared ten minutes later, hair sticking up on one side, eyes still soft with sleep. He stopped when he saw the tea, then gave a small, grateful smile.

“You’re up early,” Leo said.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

They drank in silence. Outside, the city made its usual morning noises—distant traffic, a dog barking, the rattle of a delivery truck. Ordinary sounds. Safe sounds.

Cain watched his brother over the rim of his mug. Leo looked better than he had the night before. The thinness that always followed the use of his light had faded. That was good. That was the point.

But Cain could still feel the weight he was carrying for both of them. It sat behind his ribs like a second heartbeat, slower and heavier than his own.

“You’re quiet,” Leo said eventually.

“I’m always quiet.”

“Not like this.”

Cain looked down at his tea. “Just tired.”

Leo studied him for a long moment, then let it go. He finished his tea and announced he was going to the small market three blocks away for rice and vegetables.

“I’ll come with you,” Cain said.

They walked side by side down the narrow stairs and out into the gray morning. The air smelled like wet concrete and frying oil. Leo kept glancing at him with small, concerned looks. Cain pretended not to notice.

The market was crowded in the half-hearted way of weekday mornings. Leo moved through the stalls with quiet focus. Cain followed half a step behind, scanning the crowd out of long habit.

That was when he felt it.

A sudden spike of raw emotion cut through the ordinary noise—fear sharp enough to taste, followed by a wave of helpless anger. It came from a young woman near the vegetable stalls arguing with a man who looked like family. Their voices were low, but the emotional pressure was not.

Cain’s power reacted before he could stop it. It reached, instinctively. For a second he almost took the pain. Then he locked it down hard and forced himself to look away.

Leo had noticed the argument too. His shoulders tensed.

“Don’t,” Cain said under his breath.

Leo glanced at him, conflicted, then nodded and turned back to the potatoes. They finished their shopping quickly and left.

On the walk home, Leo was quieter than usual.

“You felt it too,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“It was bad.”

“I know.”

“You could have—”

“No.” Cain’s voice came out rougher than he intended. He softened it. “Not every time, Leo. If I take everything I feel, there won’t be anything left of me.”

Leo didn’t argue. He just adjusted the bag on his shoulder and kept walking.

Back in the apartment, they put the groceries away in the same practiced rhythm. When it was done, Leo hovered near the counter like he wanted to say something else, then went to his room to change.

Cain stayed in the kitchen.

He braced both hands on the edge of the sink and let his head drop forward. The weight inside him had shifted again. Mrs. Han’s grief was still there, now joined by the sharp residue of the market argument, and underneath that, the constant low-grade fear that he was not doing enough.

He stayed like that until his arms started to shake. Then he straightened, washed his face with cold water, and went to check on his brother.

Leo was sitting on the edge of his bed, tying his shoes. He looked up when Cain appeared in the doorway.

“I’m fine,” Leo said.

“I know.”

“You’re not.”

Cain leaned against the doorframe. For a moment he considered lying. Instead he told a version of the truth.

“It’s heavier today.”

Leo’s hands stilled. “From last night?”

“Partly. And the market.”

Leo was quiet for a few seconds. Then he patted the space beside him on the bed. Cain hesitated, then sat down. The mattress dipped under his weight.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, looking at the same brick wall outside the window.

“You don’t have to carry all of it,” Leo said softly.

“Yes I do.”

“Why?”

Cain didn’t answer right away. The real answer was too large and too simple. Because you’re the only good thing I have left. Because if the darkness takes you, there will be nothing worth protecting.

He said none of that.

“Because I’m stronger,” he said instead.

Leo made a small sound that might have been disagreement, but he didn’t push. He just leaned a little closer until their shoulders pressed together. The contact was light. It still helped.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Later, when the afternoon had gone the particular shade of gray that meant evening was coming, a knock sounded at the door. Sharper this time. More urgent.

Cain opened it to find a boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, breathing hard, eyes wide with fear. Behind him, half-hidden, was a smaller girl—maybe ten—with a bruise darkening on her cheek.

“Please,” the boy said. “They said you help people. Please. Our dad— he won’t stop. She’s hurt and I can’t—”

His voice broke.

Leo was already moving.

The next hour passed in quiet urgency. Leo knelt in front of the little girl and took her small hands in his. Soft golden light rose between them. The girl’s breathing slowed. The tight terror in her eyes eased.

Cain stood back and watched the cost appear on his brother’s face—the slight paling of his skin, the way his shoulders curved inward. When the light finally faded, Leo sat back on his heels, visibly drained.

The older boy was crying without sound. The leftover emotional wreckage in the room was thick: rage, shame, helpless love, the specific pain of a child forced to become a parent too early.

Cain did what he always did.

He stepped forward, placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and opened the part of himself that knew how to take. The pain came in a rush—hot and jagged. It slammed into the weight he was already carrying and settled there, heavier than before. His vision narrowed for a second. He locked his knees and breathed through it.

When he looked up, Leo was watching him with an expression that was equal parts gratitude and worry.

They helped the two children as much as they could. Cain gave the older boy the number for a shelter that didn’t ask too many questions. Leo packed a small bag with food and a clean shirt for the girl. When they finally left, the apartment felt scraped raw.

Leo sat down hard on the couch and put his face in his hands.

Cain stayed standing. The new weight inside him was still shifting. His hands had started to tremble. He pressed them flat against his thighs until the shaking stopped.

“You took too much again,” Leo said, voice muffled.

“So did you.”

Leo dropped his hands. There were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there that morning. “We’re going to break one day.”

Cain didn’t deny it.

He crossed the room and sat beside his brother. For a long moment neither of them spoke. The only sound was the distant rattle of a train and the soft drip of the kitchen faucet that never quite shut off.

Then Leo said, very quietly, “Something’s wrong, isn’t it.”

It wasn’t really a question.

Cain thought about the shape he had seen in the corner the night before—the way the darkness had seemed to watch them. He thought about how the pain he carried sometimes felt like it was being pulled at from the outside.

“Yeah,” he said. “Something’s wrong.”

Leo leaned sideways until his head rested against Cain’s shoulder. Cain let him. He stared at the far wall and tried not to notice how the shadows in the corners of the room seemed a little deeper than they had been an hour ago.

Outside, the sky finished going dark.

Inside, the weight kept settling.

And somewhere in the part of Cain that was still only himself, a thin, cold whisper brushed against the edges of his mind—so faint he could almost pretend he imagined it.

You carry so much for him, it murmured. Does he ever carry anything for you?

Cain closed his eyes and did not answer.

But the whisper did not leave.

It only settled deeper, patient as the dark.