The man nodded, his gaze fixed on Tharos for a long moment, before speaking in a voice more sorrowful than inquisitive:
"So... do you know what happened here? In this world?"
Tharos, still seated in silence, slowly shook his head. There was no doubt—he did not know. He hadn't been here... or rather, he had existed in a place outside of time.
The man sighed, his eyes lingering on the cracked floor of the room, then said in a tone edged with bitterness:
"Oh... were you really that isolated?"
At first, Tharos didn't understand what he meant. But that final word—isolated—resounded in his mind with painful clarity.
Isolation...
The void he had been in...
A place where time held no measure...
That darkness.
That darkness.
Fragments of memory began to stir within him.
The eye… Vilmir…
The whispering…
The nothingness.
Yes, it had been isolation—but unlike any known to humankind.
Now he understood—the man thought him merely forgotten by the world, a recluse who had abandoned it, or perhaps been abandoned in return.
But what Tharos had lived through…
Was not of this world at all.
---
In that nameless stretch of time, imprisoned within darkness, it wasn't just solitude that consumed Tharos—it was time itself. Time that passed without sun or moon, without sound save for Vilmir's whispers, without light except for an endless black.
And with every moment, memory faded.
The darkness devoured him, piece by piece.
Yet on some nights—if they could be called nights—there came flashes... blurred images of faces he couldn't recall, places he couldn't place, smiles whose owners were lost to him.
Faces calling to him.
Voices screaming, laughing... then melting away.
He saw a mother warming him…
A father pounding his chest with pride…
A brother leaving him? Perhaps. A friend? A child? A woman gazing at him with tenderness? Nothing certain.
Then suddenly, every image vanished—snuffed out like a candle flame caught in a gust of wind.
Time, in that darkness, erased memory like waves wiping footprints from the sand. Until not even a name remained. Not even his own—Tharos—had a known origin anymore.
Perhaps Vilmir had spoken it.
Perhaps it was the only word still whispered to him when all else was lost.
Once, in that void, Tharos had murmured:
"I… who am I?"
But no answer came.
Even Vilmir, at times, fell silent.
And those silences were the most terrifying of all.
---
So when the man with the scarf asked whether he knew what had happened to this world…
Tharos answered with a no.
It wasn't merely ignorance.
It was forgetting.
A forgetting that had swept him away, stealing everything—even his roots.
Tharos didn't just not know the world.
He had forgotten he had ever belonged to it.
The man looked at him, astonished, as if the answer had kindled within him a possibility he hadn't considered. His blue eyes—the only part of his face visible behind the scarf—drew back slightly, as though reassessing everything. Then his gaze turned toward the sliver of sunlight creeping in through a broken window, casting a golden line across the dust and ruin.
His expression shifted, settling into that instinctive seriousness that needed no explanation—like an inner call learned through time.
He moved suddenly, approached the window, lifted the torn curtain slightly, and peered outside.
A taut silence hung in the air.
Then, with measured steps, he returned to Tharos and knelt before him, his voice low but firm:
"We need to move. This place is no longer safe."
He paused, as if choosing his words with care.
"We don't want nightfall to catch us here… Those things don't leave a trace in daylight, but they awaken at dusk."
He drew nearer, gently but firmly placing a hand on Tharos's arm.
"I'll help you out of here. I'll carry you on my back until we reach my hideout. There, we'll talk. But not now."
Tharos, listening more than understanding, looked at him with eyes almost hollow—but he nodded. A nod that seemed to say: This is all I can give you. Take it.
The man stopped at the doorway, something in him unwilling to leave without saying the unsaid. He turned back to Tharos, a faint smile barely visible beneath the scarf, and said in a voice that tried to soothe:
"Good… then wait here a bit. I'll gather a few things we might need from this place."
He turned to go, but paused again at the threshold. Without turning his body, he glanced back over his shoulder and said:
"By the way… my name is Grivenar. A pleasure to meet you."
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes scanning the pale boy's features, then whispered something only he could hear as he vanished into the shadowy depths of the house:
"Though… you're going to be a handful."
His voice disappeared behind the splintered doors, leaving Tharos alone, seated in the corner of the room, staring at the beam of light stretched across the floor.
He felt something strange… not fear, but the faint beginning of a bond he didn't yet understand.
---
Grivenar finished collecting what little he could find in the abandoned house—a small bag, a rusty pot, and a torn blanket that barely held warmth. It wasn't much... but it would have to do.
He approached the boy lying in the corner and spoke with a faint hint of optimism:
"Alright then… shall we get you up?"
He reached out steadily, lifting him with care, as if cradling something fragile, and settled him on his back, tightening his arms around him so he wouldn't fall.
Chuckling softly, trying to break the thick silence:
"You're light as a feather… heh."
But there was nothing funny about it. The boy made no response—not a glance, not a smile, not even a sigh. Exhaustion clung to him like ash to the remnants of a long-dead fire.
Grivenar felt the silence like a quiet slap across his face. He looked down and muttered to himself, almost inaudibly:
"What a fool I am…"
He tightened the scarf around his face, his eyes gleaming with a faint but steady resolve, and said:
"Let's go… before night finds us again."
He stepped out the door, carrying a silence with no name on his back, walking through the wreckage like someone trying to outrun a threat no longer seen—but always felt behind him.
---
In the darkened street, overcast with thick, heavy clouds, a solemn hush reigned. Only the sound of Grivenar's steps broke the silence, echoing off the wet ground, where remnants of a long-gone life lay scattered. Around him, the buildings stood like skeletons of a world that had forgotten how to dream, their hollow windows watching in silence like mute witnesses to a tragedy too old to retell.
On his back he bore a frail body, barely clinging to warmth, breathing slowly but not asleep. Grivenar could feel it—he didn't need to look back. He could sense the weight of awareness still pulsing on his shoulders.
He spoke in a soft voice, almost like a lullaby meant to comfort rather than question:
"Aren't you going to sleep? You look exhausted."
No answer. Only a chill breeze whispering between broken walls, like a city exhaling in its sleep.
Grivenar smiled faintly—unseen—then added:
"I get it… sleep isn't easy, not after all that. Don't worry, we're almost there."
He continued walking with even steps through the shattered city, his voice flowing like an old tale, told more to himself than the silent passenger he carried:
"You know… I had a friend before I found you up on that mountain. An odd one, but loyal… in his own way. We climbed that mountain together once, looking for a single thing—a stone like no other."
He paused beneath a rusted, swaying road sign before continuing:
"Maybe you wonder: what kind of stone would drive us up a peak like that, in all that cold and wind? Well… they're rare. Dark stones, almost charred in appearance, but they ignite with the faintest spark. No need for fire—just the right shock. That's why we needed them."
The rain had begun to fade, as if the world were listening.
"You might ask: why something so flammable? Well… we weren't setting traps for animals. We were hunting something worse—those who walk at night… I don't think you saw them clearly last night. You're lucky."
His voice dropped as they passed the charred wreck of a vehicle, like a tilted gravestone.
"We needed the stones to build protective circles around the shelter, wired to blow at the slightest motion. The fire would do the rest. It wasn't my idea—it was his..."
A pause.
"...But I came down the mountain alone."
Grivenar stared ahead for a moment, his steps slowing as if his thoughts, not his feet, had stopped.
Then he said, half in awe, half in dread:
"You don't know… anything? Not about the Crawlers… not about the Cataclysm?"
It wasn't a question anymore. It was a quiet reckoning.
His grip tightened on the leather strap across his chest, and he drew the scarf higher over his mouth.
"That explains a lot… your face, your eyes, your confusion… like someone just pulled from another time."
Tharos said nothing. He lay still, his head gently resting on Grivenar's shoulder, eyes half-closed, carrying a weariness deeper than the flesh.
Grivenar inhaled deeply and continued, as though speaking to his shadow trailing beside him:
"We'll be there soon… and once we are, we'll need to talk. No one survives here unless they know where they've come from… or at least, where they're going."
He turned back to the road ahead, continuing in silence. But his footsteps grew heavier—as though the burden he carried was no longer just a tired body, but a mystery, a profound silence, and an ignorance so deep it was terrifying.
Beneath his scarf, Grivenar clenched his jaw.
He knew he would have to speak later, to explain, to warn.
But not yet.
He walked through a city where words had died long ago.
And the only sounds left were the rain, the ruins—and questions still waiting for answers.