The Atrian Church stood still beneath the morning mist. Its aged gray walls reached skyward with a silent dignity, as if staring at a world that had long forgotten miracles. The morning bell had yet to ring, but small footsteps echoed within the orphan dormitory.
He always woke up before the others—like he always did.
The boy sat at the edge of his worn bed. His eyes stared blankly at the stone floor. His hair was messy, his skin pale, his frame thin. But none of these made him different. Not the silence. Not the fact that he never cried.
What made him different was far simpler—
No one knew where he came from.
He was never given a name. The others called him "That boy" or "The Child of the Night." They said he was found at the church altar during a great storm years ago. No sound. No tears. Just silence, eyes open to the ceiling.
Since then, he was raised by Father Eluon, the old priest who taught him prayers and letters. Yet even Father Eluon never dared name him.
"To give a name," he once said, "is to give fate. And your fate… is too silent to speak."
---
That day, the boy was cleaning the altar alone. The other children laughed outside in the courtyard. He simply listened to their distant joy as he wiped the stone floor with a wet cloth.
Then, a voice called to him.
> "You can hear me, can't you?"
He turned. No one was there.
> "Don't answer. You don't have to. Just remember this…"
The voice didn't come from outside.
> "Everything will feel wrong. But don't worry. Because it's meant to be wrong."
The boy froze.
A throb pulsed in his head. But his expression remained blank. Almost as if… as if he had been waiting for that voice all along.
---
Elsewhere, far from the church, a robed elder from the Silent Veil gasped awake. His breath trembled.
"He... has awakened."