"Nothing begins. Nothing ends. What exists is only an echo, repeating without a witness."
They had been walking for a long time.
Their skin was rough beneath the dust.
Their feet bled against the scorched stones.
But still, they moved forward.
Children.
Born in a village too poor to dream,
too young to fear what their elders had once known.
They had left behind the crude stone walls,
crossed dried-up rivers,
climbed over dead hills.
Seeking a treasure,
an ancient forbidden place,
or maybe just a way to escape boredom.
The sun beat down,
merciless and silent.
Their shadows stretched thin across the cracked earth,
wavering like smoke.
Their steps led them to a forgotten land.
A place without grass.
Without the songs of birds.
Without even the whisper of the wind.
The ground was torn like old parchment.
The black stones shimmered under the veiled sky.
The air was dry,
hollow,
as if the world itself had stopped breathing here.
They hesitated at the edge.
They whispered among themselves,
voices cracking in the stillness.
Stories told them this land was cursed.
A wasteland where even the beasts refused to wander.
A place where souls became lost echoes.
But pride,
even the pride of children,
burns hotter than fear.
And so they stepped forward.
Deeper into silence.
Every step weighed heavier.
The dust clung to their lungs.
Their eyes watered against the grit.
Yet still, they pushed on,
led by stubborn hearts and reckless dreams.
At the heart of the desert,
they found it.
A hollow carved into the earth.
A chasm forgotten by all.
An ancient sanctuary —
or what remained of it.
The stones were cracked and worn.
The air was colder here,
despite the sun overhead.
As if something unseen still lingered in the dust.
And within that hollow,
half-buried under layers of ash and silence,
lay a body.
A man.
Or something that only resembled one.
They approached with slow, clumsy steps.
Curiosity stronger than caution.
Breath held tight in their small chests.
One among them reached out —
a trembling hand brushing against the skin.
It was cold.
Colder than any stone.
Colder than the dead.
But at the touch,
a tremor rippled through the air.
A breath that was not a breath.
An echo of something older than memory.
The body stirred.
They staggered back,
panic gripping their throats.
The ground beneath them shuddered.
A low rumble filled the hollow.
Dust lifted from the stones.
A groan —
not from a mouth,
but from the bones of the earth itself.
The figure rose.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Like a king dragging himself from his own grave.
Ash flaked off his skin.
His face, once hidden,
revealed the hollow eyes of a thing long forgotten.
At first, his gaze was empty.
Blind.
Then it flickered —
slow, uncertain —
and finally opened.
The children didn't wait.
Terror tore the breath from their lungs.
They fled,
sprinting into the lifeless desert.
Running until they could no longer see,
no longer think.
Behind them,
the figure did not chase.
Did not roar.
Did not weep.
He simply stood.
Then, without anger,
without memory,
he resumed walking.
A step.
Another.
An endless motion,
born not from desire,
but from habit.
A remnant.
A witness.
In their flight,
through their cries,
a name began to take shape.
A whisper,
broken and reshaped by fear.
A fragment passed from mouth to mouth,
growing heavier with each telling.
Anor'Ven.