My mind is a haze.
My memories, like the town I come from—Setvastl—are foggy, fractured, and blurred at the edges.
I've never had the luxury of knowing who I really am. I guess I got used to it—the uncertainty, the questions with no answers. My foster father used to say, "The less you know, the safer you are." Maybe that's why I stopped asking. Or maybe… I never truly wanted to know.
Oh—my name's Elira.
At least, that's what everyone calls me.
Except for my foster parents. They just call me Eli, which I always hated. It makes me sound like a toddler lost at a shopping mall. But they never changed it—"Mum" and "Dad" were quite persistent. Not that I can blame them.
They adopted me after a supposed accident took my biological parents. I say supposed because I don't remember a thing about them—no faces, no voices, not even the shape of their shadows. Still, Selena and Valen—my foster parents—loved me deeply, raised me with care, and made me feel like I belonged. For a long time, I believed that was enough.
We lived in Setvastl, a town cradled between two nations. History books claim we stood as a symbol of peace between them—not geographically, but politically. We were the handshake that united two old enemies. A replica of coexistence.
But if Setvastl was truly a beacon of unity, then why were we hidden?
Why were we cut off from the rest of the world?
Why were our lives monitored and our every move restrained?
The books whisper theories. Some say we possessed a rare resource—Neon—a mineral so powerful, the world feared its misuse. Others say the two nations wanted to protect us... or maybe control us. Some texts describe Neon like it's a myth, a fantasy. No one knows what it truly does, or why it was important enough to keep Setvastl under such heavy secrecy.
And yet, no one questioned anything. Not out loud.
I never dared ask either. I didn't even know if I had the right to. Was I truly one of them? Did I even belong in Setvastl?
I was just a girl, barely old enough to understand politics—let alone meddle in it. And the government? It wasn't ours.
We had no army. No local law enforcement.
Everything was managed by an external agency from the two so-called guardian nations. An alliance that watched us like babysitters guarding a secret they feared the world might uncover. People said we were safe. And for a time… we were.
Life was peaceful.
We were farmers. We thrived by the riverside. Every household had land, crops, and a shared sense of family. The land was kind to us. The people, kinder.
Setvastl had no walls, yet we were prisoners.
We had no chains, yet we were bound.
And still, we smiled.
We told ourselves stories to feel better. We laughed, we danced, we harvested.
But I always felt it—beneath the surface.
Something watching. Something waiting.
The people believed that as long as we stayed quiet, the world would ignore us.
They were wrong.
And I was beginning to see it.
Not just in the way the agents looked at us now. Not just in the way the skies grew quieter at night. But in my bones. In my dreams. In the shiver that crawled across my spine each morning as if something—someone—was calling me.
I didn't know what I was meant to be.
I didn't even know if I was meant to be anything.
But I knew this much:
Something was coming.
And when it did, I would no longer have the privilege of not knowing.
I would have to choose.
To run.
To fight.
Or to finally ask the questions no one dared speak aloud.