Starborn silence

The further Sunny walked, the quieter the world became.

Not just sound—but everything.

Even his own thoughts started to feel distant, like echoes bouncing off walls he couldn't see.

He found himself beneath a tree—dead, gray, and leafless. A single rope swing hung from one of its twisted branches. Beneath it, the earth was scorched black.

> "This place isn't dead," he muttered.

"It remembers."

A memory that didn't belong to him flickered at the edge of his mind—a boy with frost-white hair standing right where he stood now.

Watching.

German Spparow.

---

Sunny turned away, breath heavy, and noticed something odd.

A well—hidden behind a crumbling storehouse. Its lid was sealed shut with heavy chains.

He pulled them loose.

Inside was a narrow tunnel. Not water, not stone—a passage.

Cautious but curious, Sunny dropped down.

What he found below wasn't just a secret room.

It was a sanctuary.

Old scrolls. Broken tools. A half-faded map of the surrounding land, drawn by hand.

And on the wall—etched in blood and soot—three words:

> "HE FAILED ME."

Sunny stepped back.

His gaze fell to a journal, cracked open, sealed under wax. The name on the cover was scratched out—but a single line was readable:

> "If he returns, don't trust him. He's not the same anymore."

Sunny felt something stir inside him. Not pain. Not fear.

But anger.

At who?

He didn't know.

---

A creak behind him.

He spun, blade half-drawn—

But it wasn't real. Just the sound of the village breathing.

Still, something was watching. Not with eyes. But intention.

> "Why me?" Sunny whispered to the dark.

Silence.

Then—a whisper that felt like a razor across the spine:

> "Because you belong to this story, even if you don't remember writing it."

The voice was unmistakable. Calm. Cold.

German.

But he was nowhere. Not physically.

He was in the walls. The sky. The ash.

And Sunny realized…

He hadn't walked into Kanah.

He had been brought here.