Starborn silence

Kanah Village was quiet. Too quiet.

As Sunny stepped past the crooked wooden arch that marked its border, the air changed. Heavy. Still. Like even the wind knew not to disturb this place. The sky above was dark and cloud-choked, casting everything in a dim gray-blue gloom. Crows circled overhead, silent.

The village was small—barely a dozen buildings, most of them worn down by time. Moss crept up stone walls, windows were shuttered, and doors creaked on hinges that hadn't seen oil in years. And yet… someone was maintaining this place. The roads were swept. Lanterns hung neatly. No overgrowth.

Like a ghost town where the ghosts still kept house.

Sunny walked slowly, senses open. He could feel it—something was wrong here. The kind of wrong that didn't shout. It waited.

He passed an old shrine at the village center, half-cracked and covered in black vines. An eye symbol was carved into the stone—slit-pupiled, inhuman.

Not a god he recognized.

He asked a hunched old man sweeping near the well, "What's this place worship?"

The man didn't look up. "We don't worship anymore. We remember."

"Remember what?"

The man didn't answer.

Sunny moved on.

He saw children playing with stones in complete silence. Their movements were rhythmic. Almost… ritualistic. A woman watched them with a blank face, her eyes never blinking.

Everyone here seemed detached. Like they were pretending to live.

And German Sparow? No one mentioned him. As if he were a ghost, a shadow, a myth—too real to be real.

Sunny found an abandoned house near the edge of the village and made it his base. It was cold and smelled of old earth, but it was safe. For now.

That night, he climbed to the old hilltop at the village's edge. From there, the whole place spread beneath him. Dark roofs. Flickering lights. The cracked shrine.

And beyond the village—a giant crater.

It was hidden by trees and time, but unmistakable. A wound carved into the land itself, as if something had crashed or emerged long ago. Its edges were jagged, unnatural.

Sunny stared.

Was this the source?

Was Kanah Village guarding something?

Or someone?

Then he heard it.

A voice. Soft. Barely a whisper on the wind.

> "You're close."

He spun—no one was there.

But in the distance, at the village's far end, a flicker of white hair disappeared into the mist.

German Sparow was watching again.

Waiting.