Chapter 1: The Silence of the White Village
The village seemed forgotten in time. A place so small that if someone sneezed in the square, the sound would echo all the way to the last house. White Village. That was the name of the place. But over the last few days, everything there seemed more... gray. Quieter. As if waiting for something to finally happen.
Everson, 12, walked with his sweatshirt slung over his shoulders and his headphones hanging around his neck. He had always had the strange feeling that he didn't quite belong there. Perhaps it was because his parents were always traveling for work, or because he had dreams that were too strange for a normal child. Or maybe it was the fact that, since last Friday, something strange had been happening to the town's clocks: they all stopped at 4:44 in the morning. No explanation.
At school, nobody seemed to care much. Julia, for example, laughed about it. She was pretty, smiled and had a look that hid more than it showed. She always said things like:
"Relax, Everson... A broken watch is something paranoid people do."
Alex, Júlia's best friend, always seemed to know more than he was letting on. He was intelligent, even too nice, and had a strange habit of watching Everson as if he were... a piece off the board.
Everson didn't trust them. Not completely.
That dark afternoon, Everson decided to walk around the oldest part of the village, near the hill. The area was somewhat abandoned, full of empty houses and rusty signs.
That's when he heard a sound coming from one of the ruins. Something between a whistle and a call.
"Everson..." whispered a low voice, almost drowned out by the wind.
He froze. His heart raced.
He turned around slowly. And there, leaning against the door of an old wooden shed, was a boy of the same age. He had light eyes, simple clothes a little dirty with dirt, but what was most striking was the calm, steady way he looked.
"Who are you?" Everson asked, taking a step back.
The boy smiled, as if he'd been waiting for that question for a long time.
"My name is João. And you're in danger."
Everson didn't answer. He couldn't. Everything inside him screamed that this afternoon was the beginning of something. Something much bigger than he could have imagined.
And in that instant, without knowing how, he understood: the village had a lot of secrets.