Masks of Ash Chapter I — The Sky That Forgot to Pray
This tale was never written. No ink dared touch its name. No priest chanted it aloud. It wasn't passed through books or sermons — it bled through silence, carried in fragments by those too broken to forget.
A legend told by whispers — but no doubt… it is the legend of the First Heavenly Demon.
They say he was never born. Not in flesh, not in time. He wasn't swaddled in cloth or named by a mother's voice. He fell, torn from the fabric of reality like a wound the world tried to ignore.
The sky didn't cry thunder when he arrived — it paused. As if it didn't understand what it had just released. From that pause, he emerged. Not as a child, but as a presence. A shape without innocence. A being shaped not by will, but by what existence tried to bury.
They say he never wept. Not because he was strong — but because sorrow was already inside him, ancient and full. What god would cry… when even gods looked away?
His arrival did not mark a beginning, but a reminder — that some things are too real for myth, too quiet for prophecy.
And so they forgot. Those who saw him either died or went mad. And time, always desperate to keep order, buried the story.
But not all stories stay buried.
And somewhere, far from where men pray and kings lie, a figure walks — not to become a legend, but because the legend never stopped walking.
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The world fades. The voice stops. And what remains is silence.
The sky above groans in crimson — a pale moon bleeding through black clouds. The cold is not kind. It is not cruel either. It simply is — eternal, unmoved, ancient like bones that forgot why they turned to dust.
Upon the peak of a forgotten mountain, wrapped in endless snow, a figure sits.
His cloak — black stained with a hue of deep blue, swallowed by the night. His hair, mostly dark, is streaked with fading white, as though time once touched him and then let go. His face is hidden behind a mask — silver laced with ash, shaped like pottery cracked in fire. Two horn-like protrusions curl back, and no one knows whether they were crafted… or grown.
His eyes burn through the mask. Red — not with rage, but something colder. A quiet grief. Or perhaps… something that came before grief had a name.
He speaks. Not to be heard. Not even to remember. Just to bleed the silence.
"Silence, they say, is peace… But up here, it lies. It doesn't soothe — it screams louder than anything else ever could. This mountain doesn't echo with voices or prayers. It echoes with thoughts that refuse to die."
"There's a kind of cold that never touches the skin. It burrows deeper — into the mind, into memory, even into what you once believed about yourself. It settles like old grief, the kind you can't name, because you're not sure it even belongs to you."
"I didn't come here looking for anything. I came because I couldn't remain down there — not among those who worship masks more than meaning… who follow names, not truths. They kneel for gods they don't understand and murder for lies they memorized."
"Pain doesn't always burn. Sometimes, it just waits — like frost in the marrow. When it speaks, it doesn't ask for pity. It asks, 'How did you survive?' And I… I never had an answer."
"I wear this mask not to hide — but to silence myself. If they saw my face, they'd call me cursed. But the real curse is remembering sorrow that doesn't even belong to you. A pain too ancient, too vast — and still, somehow, mine."
"They'll call me demon. Shadow-walker. A reflection cracked from something holy. Maybe they're right. Maybe they need someone to blame… for the silence."
"I've begged for meaning in the hollow of stars. And what stared back… was my own reflection."
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The snow slows. Then stops.
The wind does not howl anymore. The sky waits.
The young man, as if waking from centuries of stillness, rises. Not with purpose. Not with defiance. But like something that was always meant to move again.
His cloak flutters once — not from wind, but memory. He takes one step forward. Then another.
The mountain groans beneath his foot — not in protest, but as if acknowledging a name it once tried to forget.
He pauses at the cliff's edge. The world below is vast, sleeping in ignorance.
And then, he says it. Quietly. Without joy. Without fear.
"I've returned."
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End of Chapter I