I was born here...
Amid this endless sea, on a land that holds no name on their maps.
Everything I know about the world began on this island... and ends here.
I grew up cradled by silence, among trees that whisper only to the wind, and stillness broken only by the sound of waves crashing against the rocks.
One man taught me—taught me how to live, how to think, and how to face this world even if I'm alone.
Then... he left.
Since then, there's been only me.
Every morning, I climb the small hill overlooking the sea.
I look far beyond the horizon, as if searching for something I don't even know the shape of—nor if it even exists...
But my heart tells me I wasn't made just to stay here.
I no longer fear loneliness, but it was never my friend.
I named the trees, talked to the sea, and counted the days by watching the shadows of rocks at sunset.
And on that night...
I heard the sound.
A distant, strange scream...
Not wind, not a bird, not an animal.
It was a human scream.
...
The next day, before the sun had fully risen, I climbed the hill again.
But this time, I wasn't watching the horizon—I was searching... for the source of that scream.
And indeed... I saw something.
At the edge of the forest, where the sand begins, I saw three bodies... two men, a woman, and a young girl.
From here, they looked like ghosts fallen from the sky.
The two men appeared old, the woman maybe in her thirties, and the girl... looked about fifteen or a bit older—I wasn't sure.
But the one thing I saw clearly...
Was that the girl was crying,
And the rest... were unconscious.
I hesitated.
I didn't move immediately.
I stood there among the trees, watching silently, trying to understand what was happening.
Then I decided to approach...
Just a little.
Step by step, I got closer.
The girl was crying, tears streaming down her exhausted face.
When her eyes met mine, she froze in place...
She looked at me as if I were a monster risen from her nightmare.
She said nothing, but that look alone was enough...
The look of a human who thought they were going to die.
Then suddenly...
She fainted.
I hesitated for a moment. I didn't know what to do... My heart was pounding, but my body remained still.
In the end, I carried them one by one to my wooden cabin... the only place I've known my whole life.
I brought some water, cleaned their wounds, and made some bandages from the plant leaves I knew well.
And every time I looked at them sleeping, I felt something strange...
Something like longing, or maybe... hope.
Two days passed.
On the morning of the third day, the girl slowly opened her eyes...
She looked around, then at me.
Fear returned to fill her eyes.
I stood up quietly and approached her, then I heard movement behind me...
The woman had also woken up.
I wanted to say something... anything...
But my tongue felt heavy, as if the words had been trapped inside me for years.
I hadn't spoken to anyone in over ten years, since the man who raised me and taught me left.
I opened my mouth, and the words came out broken, weak...
"H... e... l... l... o."
I saw the fear in their faces grow, their gazes fixed, their bodies tense, but they didn't move.
I took a deep breath and then continued in a low voice:
"Are... you... okay?"
The girl replied, with a trembling, barely audible voice:
"W... who... are you?"
Then the woman spoke, with a more cautious voice, but her features looked more composed:
"Young man... who are you? And where are we?"
I looked at them.
Then I looked around—at my cabin, at the trees outside the door, at everything I once thought was my world.
Then I said:
"You... are on an island. An island no one visits.
And I...
Don't even know who I am yet.