The night pressed heavily upon the small village near Mecca, as if the sky itself weighed down on every rooftop. The air carried only the acrid scent of scorched earth and stagnant water, while the deep rumble from beneath the ground rose like an enraged beast. Suddenly, the village shook violently. Fields cracked before the homes, dust erupted into the air like black phantoms, and fathers and mothers cried out in shock and terror.
In a humble hut on the village's edge, Saqr's wife writhed on her bed, bearing their first child. Pain coiled around her body like hidden fangs. Saqr, clutching her hand, muttered prayers in a stammering voice:
"Allah is greatest… Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs… Lord, protect her!"
Amid the trembling earth, a strange glow appeared upon the child's body. A crimson light seeped from his left shoulder, flickering like an untamable flame. A cold, luminous blue line traced his right arm, moving with a whisper of wind that could barely be heard. Faint traces of green and yellow appeared like secret sigils upon his skin, as if the earth itself acknowledged him.
The elderly Sheikh Abdul Rahman, arriving swiftly after the first tremor, knelt before the child, his voice deep and trembling:
"This… this child… the marks of the four elements upon his body… the prophecy begins…"
A tear slid down Saqr's face. He had tried to cling to hope, but the sound from his wife's heart fell silent:
"Allah is greatest…"
Her death marked the first price, the first toll of fate that her son would bear.
As the father huddled over the newborn, another infant appeared at the hut's doorway, wrapped in a black blanket, carrying a mysterious note. Saqr's heart fractured for a moment between shock and fear, but he quickly understood: this was another child, perhaps bearing an even greater secret. He decided to raise him alongside his son and named him Khalid, while the night screamed around them with the echoes of the earth's fractures.
In that moment, with every cry of the trembling earth and every flicker upon the child's body, Saqr and the Sheikh realized one undeniable truth: this birth was no ordinary birth. It was the dawn of a new era—a time of displacement and prophecy. And the sky, or what remained of it, bore witness.
Outside the hut, the earth cracked further. Long, menacing fissures surged toward Mecca, forming dark, treacherous paths. The echoes of those splits sounded like ancient cries, warning all who could hear:
"The Displacement has begun… and destiny unfolds… Lord, grant us the strength to bear Your trust."
And the night, despite all that had occurred, remained heavy and silent, watching a future in which no child in the village would ever be the same again.