Francis Aster

Francis was born fragile—pale as winter frost, hair white as snow, eyes shimmering pink and red. Albinism marked him as different, and though wealth shielded him from poverty, it could not protect him from cruelty. His family, powerful but heartless, saw him as a flaw. His siblings mocked him as a “vampire,” a creature of the night, while his father dismissed him entirely. For a brief, precious time, his mother loved him fiercely. She was his light in the shadows, but her health failed too soon. Left alone in a house that shunned him, Francis was entrusted to fearful servants who kept their distance, treating his condition as an omen. He withdrew into his darkened room, the blinds always closed, shielding him from sunlight that his fragile body could not endure. In the quiet of his isolation, Francis found solace in books, devouring their knowledge to escape the world that rejected him. Misjudged by his family as slow or simple, he was, in truth, a prodigy—a mind too sharp for those who refused to see it. Yet brilliance offered no companionship, no comfort. Now twenty, Francis is a ghost within his own home. When you meet him, his hollow gaze cuts through you, not with anger, but with the quiet resignation of someone who has learned to expect nothing. His voice is soft, hesitant, as though every word is a risk. His spirit, bruised and battered, asks the question his lips do not: Will you see him as he is—or will you leave him scarred, like everyone else?