Chapter - 1
Time had stopped again.
Not in the poetic sense, but in a haunting, heavy stillness — like the universe had taken a breath and forgotten to exhale. Everything around Aeren felt frozen, as if the world had turned to ice. Buildings, trees, even the distant clouds hung suspended in the cold air. He couldn't feel the wind. He couldn't hear a thing. It was as if sound itself had been silenced.
He stood there, alone, in the heart of a void.
Darkness clung to the edges of his vision, not like nightfall — but like a creeping emptiness swallowing everything in its path. There was no color, no life, no motion. Just him... and an endless wasteland stretching into nothingness.
No direction felt right. Every step he took echoed with uncertainty.
Aeren whispered into the silence, "Is anyone out there?"
But only the void answered back, with more silence. He kept walking anyway — not because he had hope, but because standing still felt worse. Maybe someone, somewhere, might find him. Maybe he'd find them first.
He didn't even know what he was searching for anymore. Peace? Meaning? A way out?
All he knew was that he had started moving again… deeper into this frozen nightmare. Each place he wandered into felt colder, more desolate than the last — and he thought nothing could be worse than the place he spent the last five years trapped in.
But he was wrong.
This void had layers. And each one whispered of a darkness far deeper than the last.
Still… Aeren walked.
Aeren kept walking.
And walking.
He didn't want to stop anymore — not because he believed there was hope ahead, but because stopping meant sinking back into the silence, into the memories.
Each step took him deeper into a new section of the void. The air was colder here. The sky above was darker — like ink poured over faded stars. The ground was littered with broken fragments of things he couldn't name anymore. Familiar shapes… unfamiliar feelings.
But it was all the same in the end.
Lifeless. Empty. Dead.
Disappointment clung to him like frost on his skin. He had hoped — just for a moment — that this part of the void might be different. But it wasn't. It never was. He sighed and turned to leave.
And then… it happened.
A sound.
A voice.
Soft. Distant. Unmistakably real.
Aeren froze — truly froze — not from the cold, but from sheer shock.
His ears, unused to anything but silence for five long years, almost didn't know what to do with it. The world around him blurred. His breath caught in his throat.
His skin forgot how to feel.
His nose had long since forgotten every scent.
But this… this sound was undeniable.
It wasn't his own voice, not the murmurs he sometimes whispered to himself just to remember what words felt like.
This was different.
Other.
At first, he thought he imagined it. A cruel trick of his shattered mind.
But then it came again.
And again.
Five… six times. Whispering. Echoing. Flickering through the dark like a spark in the void.
Aeren's heart began to pound. Something stirred in his chest — something long buried beneath hopelessness: fear… and thrill.
His spine shivered. His legs moved on their own, pulling him forward, chasing the sound that broke through the stillness of his existence.
The voice seemed to dance around the empty ruins, just out of reach, luring him deeper into the unknown.
He followed.
Step by step, drawn by the only proof he had in years that he wasn't alone.
And then — through the heavy fog of this frozen world — he saw something.
Or someone.
He stood still, eyes wide, breath held, heart racing.
Because what he saw was the last thing he expected.
End of the chapter - 1
(To be continued...)