Chapter 1: Harbal Dawn
The chaotic clouds fell into sudden silence, and the wind erupted through their fractured stillness as luminous rays tore across the sky. The sun began to peer through the clustered vault of gray, its gaze slipping between broken masses of vapor like a cautious sovereign reclaiming the Abyss.
The winds escaped their prison and swept violently yet tenderly across all careless things—roofs, branches, dust, and distant bells trembling beneath its passage. Shimmering beams spilled upon the earth with exotic favor, blessing only scattered houses and the lonely church that stood like a patient witness beneath God's judgment.
Beyond the fences of the lawful landscape and its forgotten landmarks, the greenery seemed plundered and reborn at once. Leaves twisted in resurrection, grass bent as though remembering ancient storms, and the forest answered with roaring unrest.
Old men along the paths lifted their faces into the storm, letting the moist light and clustered wind wash over their withered skin, their expressions trembling with rare, quiet rapture—as though the weather itself had granted them a forgotten communion.
And the world Not Just breaths It Just Got Chaotic As Nature Of Humans.
But...
As I remember it, I awoke beneath a storm of fractured thought—chaotic clusters whispering along the margins of consciousness before silently dissolving into nothing. For a time, I lay unmoving, gathering those scattered remnants, stitching them back into coherence, and only then did I lift my gaze to observe the chamber that enclosed me.
A strand of thin, colorless blanket was clenched within my hand, scarcely deserving the name, while my legs lay bare beyond its reach, exposed to the stagnant chill of the air. To my right stood a greasy wooden table, darkened by age and neglect, upon which rested a lamp long deprived of flame—its ignition collapsed into memory, its glass dimmed as though light itself had abandoned this room.
When I rose from the bed, an exotic tide surged through my skull. It was not emotion alone, but intrusion—an outlander's sensation, vast and unfamiliar, as though an entire foreign world had been pressed into my mind. I did not merely feel strange; I felt rewritten. It was as if reality itself had been recorded inside me, yet none of it bore my signature. I knew nothing of myself. Even the concept of me felt borrowed.
I moved toward the gateway at the edge of the room. Iron struck flesh. A revolver smacked against the thumb of my foot, cold and merciless, and with a muted curse I kicked it away, sending it skidding into the black hollow beneath the bed where forgotten things lie in patient silence.
As I neared the door, those clustered thoughts returned with violent clarity, erasing the earlier foreign haze. In its place surged visions of seas and scattered islands—archipelagos drifting through memory like drowned continents resurfacing within the skull.
Then balance betrayed me. My body tilted, gravity seized its claim, and I fell. One hand caught the iron latch of the door while my elbow crashed into the table, driving me sideways. My shoulder kissed the mirror's edge with fatal intimacy. Glass shrieked. It splintered and bit into flesh with crystalline hunger.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
That breath shattered.
From the front-right chamber came my mother's voice, sharp yet weary.
"Why the arms and explosives?"
A man answered in a hushed murmur, "Oh… just simply forget that."
Silence thickened. Then he added softly, "You wouldn't need to prepare any dishes tonight."
My movement disturbed them.
"A$-, " my mother said, "are you awake so early?"
A pause.
Then again, uncertain: "What was that sound just now? And do you truly know the hour you rise?"
A Lady wrapped in a wagon-lit robe that trembled softly in the draft & Her face was bright yet worn, the corners smooth with restrained age, a slightly flattened nose, and gray-detailed irises resting within a gentle, common expression. A woman past forty, standing about a meter and sixty-five(or 1.65m).
Behind her followed my father—draped in a three-piece white suit with a waistcoat drawn tight. A heavy knuckle-cluster of keys lay concealed against his side, peeking like a secret. A torch burned in his left hand, while the other rested upon the blood-splashed edge of the doorway.
But—
My elbow bled.
Crimson slid down my arm and washed the table in dark rivers. It spilled upon the boards, soaking the wood, staining the floor like an unwanted signature.
When my mother saw it, her voice barely shifted.
"Are you bleeding?"
Another glance.
"…That much?"
There was no panic in her eyes—only habit, as though violence were a familiar tenant of this house. Yet the blood drowned the table and scattered across the ground in obscene patterns.
Only then did I notice the deeper truth.
The blood had already been there.
It flowed from the severed head of a wolf resting upon the table—its jaws slack, fur matted, eyes dulled into glassy surrender. Memory returned: the hunt of the previous night, the frozen forest, the kill earned by my hands, and the trophy my father had placed there in grim honor.
Yet my own wound told a quieter story.
No ruin.
No flood.
Only a single puncture—small, precise, buried into one place. Enough to bleed, but never enough to justify the sea of crimson surrounding me.
My father broke the silence.
"Seeing your own glorious trophy… but that is never enough. We have a way, so prepare yourself."
My mother answered, displeased.
"Where are you taking him so solemnly? It is his 18 birthday. Let him think a while."
My father's pupils thinned.
"On a hunt, of course. We cannot head to the capital because of you."
Then his temper erupted.
"Perhaps I should let him go to the capital alone. If we had enough money, I would even offer him a prostitute so he could lose his virginity."
My mother's face twitched.
"get back with your astonishing mistakes. You married me, so—"
"I will go on a wilderness hunt." I interrupted.
My father exhaled slowly.
"Your ornaments and golden Instruments consumed every coin I owned. Thus we inhabit this bleak shell, not the grand avenues of the capital, where my father's public library that should have been ours."
Again, i cut through the chaos.
"Wash your hands. They're covered in blood. Let us leave early."
My Father Flustered And Coughed also said "onhhh... Okay, Good."
My father handed me the torch.
"Retrieve the rifles and explosives from the underground chamber."
He turned, then paused.
"Also borrow the four-barrel blunderbuss and extra gunpowder."
I nodded.
"Then give me the keys."
The heavy knuckle-cluster slid from his waistcoat into my palm.
He left for the place where he butchered the wolf. My mother lingered, staring at the severed head.
I departed with the torch and keys.
The underground chamber lay beside the house, half-sunken along the edge of the foundation. Its door was smeared with grease and dried blood, the handle scarred by violent use. When I grasped it, the metal screamed. The hinge nearly cracked, so I forced the gate downward and revealed the descending stairs.
They sloped into rot-darkness—redwood steps soaked with old stains, their surfaces slick with forgotten violence.
Clusters of fractured light pierced through branches above, scattering chaotic rays along the walls. Leaves swayed. Wind whispered. The luminance trembled as shadows stitched themselves across the gateway... And the descent Ahead.