Once upon a time, the world was silent.
Not a peaceful silence—
But a silence born of ancient wounds.
There were no songs in the sky.
No spirits dancing in the mist.
Only echoes shattered at the edge of time.
They say… once, the spirits sang.
But the song did not end in silence.
It ended with a scream that never truly ceased.
The sacred voice was silenced
by hands that summoned them in the name of power.
And from the ruins of sound—
Ash was born.
---
Ash is not merely a remnant.
It is the body of something that once lived…
and burned, slowly.
The world no longer remembers the spirits.
It only remembers what they could give.
The light torn from souls became temple lanterns.
The darkness torn from hearts became the fuel of magic.
All of it—taken, tamed, discarded.
No one asks anymore:
Where did the fire come from?
No one asks:
Does the spirit… suffer?
All that remains is silence.
Not because no one can speak—
But because no one dares to listen.
---
At the bottom of the world,
where light no longer shines and sound no longer echoes,
A child awoke.
He was not born—
He emerged.
Not with a cry,
But with an odd pulse that split the air.
There was no first embrace.
No name whispered.
Only cracked earth that scraped against his bare back,
stones slick with ancient blood that stuck to his skin like memory,
and a sky that refused to look down.
His first breath tasted of metal and rot—
like something sacred that had decayed in silence.
---
His name was not given.
Not by a mother.
Not by a spirit.
Not by anyone.
But the world gave him a title—
The whispers of fear from those who first gazed into his dark eyes.
> Ashen.
"Meaning: the one who has been burned… and will never return."
---
His fingers, cracked and darkened by dried earth,
trembled when they touched the stone beside him—
not from fear,
But from a memory that wasn't his.
Something in the rock wept.
And somehow, so did he.
Ashen did not cry.
He did not know how.
He only knew the world trembled when he was angry.
Shadows retreated—
But never truly left.
And in the silence,
Voices still whispered.
Though they never touched,
He felt them crawl just beneath his skin—
cold traces like breath against old wounds
that never had time to heal.
"You belong to no one…"
"But you belong to us…"
"We—the spirits who were never named.
We—the song torn to shreds."
They didn't sing like the spirits of the sky.
They roared.
They trembled like broken bones still forced to hold up a body.
Ashen heard them.
He didn't understand.
But he wasn't afraid.
Because in that silence…
He finally felt real.
---
Above, the sky turned red.
Not because of the spirits' song,
But because of guilt—
guilt that had been buried for a long time.
The sky knew it had allowed the world to torment its melody.
It knew the once free spirits were now only shadows of who they once were.
But the sky's regret couldn't heal the world.
It could only… burn.
---
Ashen didn't walk toward the light.
He didn't trust it.
The light judged.
The light burned.
The light was the false face of those who killed spirits in the name of goodness.
Ashen sought only one thing:
Silence that will not betray.
But every silence he finds is filled
With shattered souls and hungry whispers.
He learns from them—
Not through words, but through feelings.
That not every soul wants to return.
That is not to say that every song is worth singing again.
Some wounds are meant to be… kept.
---
In a sleep that is not sleep,
In a time no longer remembered,
Ashen hears a voice.
Not soft.
Not poetic.
But a truth that cuts deep into the soul.
"You echo every soul that can never speak."
"You are the tongue of souls that burn… so the world may be called 'bright.'"
"If you want to know why this world is shattered…
Do not ask the sky.
Ask the ashes."
---
His eyelids peeled open like torn bark—slow, reluctant.
Dust clung to his lashes.
The light did not greet him.
It pierced.
And when Ashen opened his eyes,
He knew the world did not want him to exist.
And that…
That was precisely why he must remain.
---
The soul guardians called him broken.
The elemental rulers called him an aberration.
But the torn spirits…
They called him a witness.
He was not a saviour.
He was not a replacement.
He was a memory…
that could not be erased.
---
One night,
the sky turned charcoal grey.
Not because of a storm—
But because of a secret.
People had nightmares.
The rulers lost the spirits they had summoned.
But beneath the ruins of the forgotten city,
A child laughed for the first time.
Not a laugh of joy—
But a laugh of recognition.
His voice cracked when he laughed—
unused, brittle,
like the bones of a forgotten bird
trying to remember how to fly.
A laugh that said:
"Now I understand…
Why am I here without a song?"
---
Because the world doesn't need a new song.
The world needs someone brave enough
to listen to the end of the old song.
And Ashen…
will listen
until the last note
fades away.