1 STRUGGLING IN WHEALTH Prologue Forty years ago, fire fell from the sky. It was not war the way old people told stories. It was one night. One attack. Missiles screamed, b buildings folded, and by morning, the country was a graveyard of concrete and ash. The hospitals collapsed. Then the schools. Then the markets where mothers bought bread. When the smoke cleared, poverty sat on every corner like a king. People slept on the ground. They boiled leaves for soup. They buried their dad with their bare hands because there were no coffins left. In one town the damage was total. Almost everyone had lost a home. Everyone had lost someone. And then they came, the rich people. Reputed farmers arrived with trucks and papers. Money was worthless, so the mayor sold them entire streets for the price of rice. They fenced the land, planted on it and within one 2 season, the soil gave back four times what was put in. They became the only people with food. If you had coins, you could buy. If you had nothing, you worked. Under the sun, 14 hours a day, for a bowl and a place to sleep on the dirt. Among those working was a young guy, too young to be a man, had not yet reached his twenties. He was not like the other workers who were there for food and shelter. He was here for money. Two years before the attack, while clearing his had been punished by his father, a retired soldier, to kneel in the fields. Out of boredom, he began digging the soil, he found shimmering blue stone . He didn’t know what it was. So he spent nights in the old town library, teaching himself. The stone didn’t figure in any book, he realised he had discovered something big. He kept it to himself and spent months trying to figure out. One afternoon while he was playing near the lake, the stone accidentally fell in the water, and while trying to get it back, he saw something amazing, in water, he could see through the stone and realized it had diamond in it. He dropped another one and saw a different mineral. He named his stone sky minerals He believed it could change things, light homes, power machines. After weeks of work, he finally designed a polisher and cutter that could extract the gem- like crystals in his sky-mineral. But before he could expose his discovery, the attack happened. Since it was unexpected, his father had to join the battle, but he lost his life. The young boy didn’t want to work in the farms, but he needed money He wa s lucky enough that his late father’s fields were far away from town, so the farmers didn’t buy it. But he worked hard every day, talking to no one. He had planned to get enough money so he could leave the country and make the world discover his invention. Because he knew, here the farmers wanted to be the only ones in control, he had to leave. There was something strange about the arrival of the farmers, but everyone was so concerned about surviving that no one noticed, no one except him. It was during a harvest time that everything changed. Three of the farmers’ sons, dragged a young woman behind the storage shed and tried to rape her. She was screaming for help, but no one dared to intervene. That was their usual doing. The young man was passing by. In normal circumstances, he would have minded his business. But seeing one the men bringing out a knife, his body instantly reacted and he pushed them away, he fought them and saved the girl, even if he knew the farmers could 3 beat him to death . By some luck, the farmers didn’t take it to heart, knowing he was one of the most hardworking young men; they didn’t want to lose him. After that day, the young woman kept following him everywhere, because she was grateful. She offered her meal and brought water. Gradually, he let his guard down and became less cold. They started talking more. About their pains, then about the past. They talked about the people they lost, how kind the world used to be. About how the world had taken that kindness and beaten it out of them. “I’m Joshua”. She smiled and answered “Emilie” Somewhere between the shared bread and shared grief, they fell in love. One night he told her his secret. He showed her his crystal and the sketches of his machine. “If this works”, he said, “ We will never be poor again”. From that day, they saved together. Ate less and smiled less. When they got enough money, they had to look for a way to escape. A delivery boat passed once every Six months. Its departure was in two days. That was their chance. But they had to do that at night. The day the boat was to leave, she stood at the dock and said, “I can’t go. I’m too afraid. I’ll just wait for you here”. He took her hand and said, “There’s no way I am leaving you here alone. So they went together. Two people with one bag of coins, one machine in a wooden box, and all the crystals he could dig in his yard, enough to fill five large wooden boxes. And a vow made on the deck as the shore disappeared. “Never again”, he said “Never poor". Never weak” , she said. “Together, we will conquer this world. We will as cold to the world as the world was to us”. Forty years later, they kept their vow. And their children inherited it. 4