Part One: Roots of Darkness
Winter was not cold… it was a corpse buried deep within the memory of time.
It was as if the world had decided to seal its mouth, not out of reverence for an ancient death, but because what it had witnessed left it speechless.
The trees stood like condemned souls—wooden, unyielding, neither groaning nor confessing—eyes silent, watching.
The sky, dust-colored, neither wept nor smiled, as though the very lungs of life had been torn from it.
Blood was absent, yet the air reeked of rot, of a defeat that no cleansing could wash away.
At a deserted bend, I found my shadow split, no longer recognizing my own features.
Everything remained, yet stricken, as if denying itself in my presence.
Even silence had become a weight, dragging behind it the ruins of centuries like rusted chains.
No one dared ask me how I had arrived.
Perhaps they already knew… that I had never truly arrived at all, but had been a fall, rolling endlessly from the womb of absence.
And from here, everything began.
Or perhaps… it has yet to begin.
It had begun long before—countless years ago—
when his grandfather, that preacher butchered by his own holiness,
proclaimed a heaven built from the bones of the earth.
He defiled purity with the blood of those who would not bow to his altar.
He ravished mothers, then whispered: "I have purified her."
He burned children, murmuring: "I have cleansed them of filth."
A faith erected upon skulls, a sanctuary carved from charred flesh,
and a laugh rising above the massacre.
A laugh that was neither human nor demonic…
but closer to the smile of a god devouring his first mistake.
The years passed, yet the curse never died.
On one day of hell, when the air itself breathed ash
and the streets suffocated with the stench of fire,
Wahhab sat with his father in the upper room.
Cold bread on the table…
and a warm laugh between eroded jaws.
A short laugh, yet an echo of that ancient laughter—
the laughter that had shaped all of history.
The father laughed long and hard…
as if his hands had not strangled an entire family just a week ago:
three brothers, six sisters, and two parents whose backs time had already broken.
Wahhab, still a child, still scribbling dreams in chalk,
spoke to his father of school, of small incidents,
of laughter between classes…
and he was not afraid.
As if blood never clings to the soul of those we love.
On another night,
the father prepared to leave.
"He has work," he said—
or, as he called it… "an excuse to slaughter more innocents."
Before he left, he entered Wahhab's room,
bowed before him like a broken monk,
kissed his forehead, and whispered:
"I love you, my son."
Then he stood…
but Wahhab blinked.
He was awake.
Pretending to sleep, as if slumber could shield him from the truth.
Hours passed…
Evening had drawn its veil, and the neighborhood lay empty,
as if the souls had abandoned its walls.
The place was still, yet the silence was no mercy;
it was a lurking trap, a quiet dripping terror from the ceiling of dusk.
The air was cold, and the sky leaned toward a mysterious black,
as though inhaling its final gasp before death.
There was no sound, save a faint trembling,
felt only by a small heart walking along a path far wider than its steps.
Hours passed… Wahhab went to school.
A diligent child, despite the uproar coursing through his blood.
When he returned, he ran home,
a small heart polishing longing as if it were a blade.
He ran as if the road itself would swallow him,
rushing toward a house that had not changed… or so he thought.
There, in the garden where he had taken his first steps,
his father sat in the old chair.
A familiar figure in a familiar place…
yet something in the air had shifted.
Something broken, unspoken, incomprehensible.
He approached with childish fear,
and asked in a trembling voice:
"Have I done something wrong?"
But the chair did not answer.
The body did not answer.
The father was present in flesh, absent in spirit,
bleeding from every opening in his body.
The blood flowed slowly, as if performing a mysterious ritual of farewell.
A relentless bleeding, punishing not just the father,
but the earth itself.
Wahhab froze in place, as if his heart had fled his chest.
His eyes widened until childhood slipped from them, leaving only emptiness behind.
Twilight seeped slowly through the house,
sliding into the empty corners,
stretching its shadow over everything
as if sketching the prologue of a world yet unborn.
The garden was void of sound,
but the stillness was no peace;
it was a warning—
a strange trembling that concealed behind it
the energy of death approaching.
Wahhab did not know when his fear began,
or when the path back inside had become a forest without an exit.
Yet every step bound him to the past—
to his grandfather,
to that cursed laughter,
to the silence of a father he no longer recognized.
The hours at school had passed,
but they were not erased from his memory.
Every moment, every classmate's laugh,
every book in his bag
felt like a rhythm pulsing in time with the blood
that would later lead him here,
to this garden that no longer felt familiar.
He reached the house,
his heartbeat rising in silence as if running ahead of his footsteps.
There, on the old chair, sat his father—
but not as he had known him.
Wahhab dared not think.
He only felt everything around him—
the trees, the earth, the air—
freeze in anticipation of the moment.
He whispered:
"Where am I? Please… I want to wake up…
This isn't real… this is a cruel joke…
Father, please… wake up… stop, don't burn me."
But death does not joke.
His father moved closer,
barely able to speak, and murmured in a faint voice:
"My son… please, avenge me…
Don't let my blood be spilled in vain."
Wahhab did not reply.
He did not yet possess that kind of strength;
the hard shapes life carves into the heart
had not yet formed within him.
Inside, there was only one question,
knocking at the door of his soul
as if it were the key to his fate:
"If he dies… why should I live?"
Forty years had passed, yet they did not erase the shadow of the past.
They polished it, made it deeper, heavier, more merciless.
Wahhab's children knew nothing of a childhood that breathed mercy,
nor had they felt the warmth of forgiveness.
In their worlds, mercy was weakness, forgiveness betrayal,
and a smile a mark of defeat.
Wahhab looked at them with eyes that knew no love,
seeing every deviation from hatred as an unforgivable crime,
every glimmer of light in their eyes a betrayal
of the darkness he had planted in his own heart long ago.
On a morning choked with absence,
Dammy entered school for the first time,
thinking the world outside the walls might be different,
as if it were a blank page yet to be written.
But the walls had not changed,
and beyond them, there was no greater safety.
The caves had not vanished—they had multiplied…
Children memorizing prayers of murder as they would the alphabet,
teachers distributing hatred across their notebooks as if the letters themselves were poison,
and religion taught like a dagger buried in the heart of every lesson,
not as a sanctuary for the soul.
The quiet was strange, heavy,
breathing with them, watching every movement,
every whisper, every hidden smile.
In this silence, time seemed to stretch…
interwoven between yesterday and today,
between Wahhab's legacy and Dammy's childhood.
Everything was connected,
every step on the ground like a signature on a contract yet unread.
And here was the beginning… or perhaps the continuation.
The school, the children, the old blood still seeping through time.
Everything hovered on the edge of an event not yet occurred,
waiting for the spark to ignite,
for the door to open to any coming scene,
any confrontation, any revelation…
Evening crept slowly through the abandoned walls,
touching every corner with a hidden chill,
as if the place itself were watching anyone daring enough to approach.
The air was stagnant, yet charged with echoes of the past…
with sounds never heard, whispers from years gone by,
woven into the walls of the school and the empty corridors.
Steps on the floor seemed like the signature of time,
each footfall carving a memory,
reminding the children that every moment in this place
was an extension of the one before,
and that they were merely links in a long chain of secrecy and absence.
In a neglected corner, where light's breath had yet to reach,
Dammy met a child without faith, without a real name.
This child was not pure because he was good,
but because he remained without identity,
without a past to weigh him down,
without a future to bind him.
Together, they were a single point of light
floating above a silence heavier than any scream.
Dammy: Hello.
Naqi, softly, hesitantly: Hello…
Dammy: How are you?
Naqi, lying: I'm fine.
Dammy: Can we be friends?
Naqi: No… that's fine
The air around them remained still,
as if time itself had paused
to witness this small encounter.
Yet one thing remained open…
something waiting to be discovered, to decide its fate,
to ignite the first spark or let it fade into darkness.
The corner, the silence, the two children—
everything here teetered on the edge of an event yet to occur,
ready to record any forthcoming scene, choice, or confrontation.
Evening had settled over the empty school,
the air creeping slowly between walls,
heavy as if every room held secrets from years that had yet to close.
Time here did not pass—it stretched,
intertwining the present moment with the forty years before,
with the cries of the past, the laughter of Wahhab and his father,
and the dreams of children not yet born.
Footsteps on the wooden floor echoed,
each step signing memory,
each silence adding weight as if the place itself breathed slowly, watched, and judged.
Then the two children began to speak,
of trees, of play, of childhood dreams that were never meant to live.
As if they were imitating a life never given to them,
imitating other children, not being children themselves.
But the world around them was no world of childhood—
it was a world occupied by demons,
where every laugh could become a scream,
every small step an ancient ritual.
Dammy reached toward the cellar door,
hesitated for a moment, then opened it.
The air that entered was damp and heavy,
like a chest holding secrets for years,
trying to remain silent but collapsing at the first touch.
He walked slowly on the wooden stairs that groaned beneath his feet,
each creak a whisper from the past.
There he saw Naqi… standing in the darkness, frozen,
as if the light frightened him more than the darkness itself.
And the moment hung… suspended.
Darkness, light, the heavy air, the two children—
everything seemed poised on the edge of an event yet to unfold,
ready for any movement, any revelation, any choice.
Within this aura of silence and anticipation,
any subsequent scene could embed itself here
without shattering the temporal or spiritual cohesion of the place.
The Dami whispered, as if speaking to his own shadows rather than to Naqi:
—Do you think we were born to be punished, not to live?
Naqi trembled slightly, his eyes fixed on the void. He lowered his head, as if swallowing a stone:
—I don't know… but I feel we weren't created to survive, only to witness.
The Dami moved closer, the glint in his eyes like fractured glass—fragile, yet unbroken:
—Do you know when death truly begins, Naqi?
Naqi shook his head slowly. The Dami continued, his voice splintering:
—It begins when you believe you're alive, but nothing inside you pulses anymore. When your body becomes a clock with no hands.
A heavy silence followed, as though the earth itself held its breath.
Naqi muttered, barely audible, as if afraid to hear his own voice:
—I fear this silence will swallow me whole, Dami.
The Dami stepped closer, placed a hand on Naqi's shoulder, and whispered slowly, as if confessing before an absent tribunal:
—So do I, Naqi… I've been trembling since the day I was born. Not from hell itself, but from the thought that I'm part of it.
Naqi raised his trembling eyes and said softly:
—Sometimes I feel the night devours us not because we're weak, but because we never wanted to be born at all.
The Dami smiled—a small, distorted smile—and replied:
—And perhaps, Naqi… we're not children at all. We're remnants of an older time, left here to finish a punishment we still don't understand.
In that moment, everything fell silent.
Even the dampness in the walls seemed to listen; even the wood beneath their feet ceased its groaning.
Time itself froze around them, leaving their words suspended in the air—as if each syllable had turned into a shard, a fragment on which any ending could be built, or any unplanned beginning ignited.
They fell silent, as if the very air hesitated between them before either dared to speak.
Their quiet was like a wall of old glass—fragile, yet capable of cutting if touched.
Naqi spoke in a low voice, his eyes lost, searching the void:
—Sometimes I feel we carry wounds we've never lived… wounds that aren't ours.
The Dami sighed, as if exhaling a whole lifetime:
—No one is born with the wounds of others… yet we inherit their silence.
We become the blood they never shed.
We bleed for them, so they remain pure in their graves.
Another moment of heaviness passed. Then they rose together, stepping slowly,
as if emerging from under a roof of inner debris that could never be rebuilt.
The place around them had not changed, yet they were no longer as they had been.
The Dami raised his hand before his face, staring at it as if seeing it for the first time.
His fingers trembled—not from fear, but from an unfamiliar awareness.
He said in a cracked voice:
—This hand… it will break one day.
Naqi smiled faintly, hesitantly, as if unsure where the smile belonged:
—But you will remain yourself, won't you?
The Dami lowered his head, then lifted his dimmed eyes and said:
—I don't know… maybe when it breaks I won't remain anything at all.
Maybe I'll become my shadow… or something else, something without a name.
The air around them shivered, as if the walls had recorded their confession and refused to forget it.
The silence was dense, as though preparing a stage for an event yet unwritten,
an event waiting for the right moment to strike.
Twilight flowed over the alleys, covering the walls in a gray hue leaning toward oblivion.
The Dami walked back home, each step heavy, as if dragged from the bottom of a well.
He could not hear his usual inner voice; even the echo of his own breathing sounded strange, distorted, as if it belonged to someone else.
On the way, he saw children playing, their laughter scattering like small stones thrown into a stagnant river.
He did not join them. He moved forward, carrying that nameless weight,
a burden that felt like waiting for punishment before it was announced.
He reached the door. The house was eerily still; its silence was no comfort, only a trap.
He hesitated for a moment, then pushed it open and stepped inside.
The interior was not as he knew it.
Shadows stretched unnaturally, as if the space had suddenly shrunk into a tunnel.
Within those shadows stood Haqad.
He did not speak, did not smile, not even appearing to breathe.
His mere presence was enough to drain the warmth from the air.
Farther in, sitting like a king over the ashes of his kingdom, was Wahhab.
He waited.
His eyes did not look directly, but circled around the Dami like knives circling flesh before piercing it.
The Dami felt time itself freeze, the steps he had climbed to reach this point meaningless.
It was as if he had not entered a house, but a courtroom with no judges… only hatred.
In a low, sharp voice, like a whistle in a cracked ear, Wahhab said:
—Haqad… begin.
From that moment, the Dami's body became a stage of exposure.
They stripped him of everything: his clothes, his warmth, every trace of his humanity.
They left him suspended, in a nakedness resembling a cry without tears,
where even torment no longer required blood to assert its existence.
His body trembled.
But inside, everything began to fall silent.
Even his heart stopped screaming.
His eyes no longer wept… but asked, in a horrifying calm:
—"If you are all gods, where is justice?
And if you are human… who forged your hell?"
The place groaned in silence, and the air moved only as a heavy thought moves through a broken mind.
Wahhab stood over the Dami—not as a father, but like a statue forged from ancient hatred,
sculpted from unforgiven shame, carved in a time that knew no mercy.
His eyes did not look—they judged.
They were a court without walls, without witnesses, without mercy,
watching weakness as a stone watches the fall of rain.
He stepped onto the Dami's body slowly, as if each step represented decades of inherited pain,
felt every breath within him, every ripple in the air, every shiver of the wood beneath his feet.
Then he paused, casting a glance at Noah, frozen in place,
as if time itself had halted to grasp the meaning of absolute fear.
Wahhab whispered, his voice low yet weighted with the sum of all years:
—Do you know… that humans are born without hearts,
and that fate cans them to become echoes of blood?
—To see yourself alive while all your walls collapse inside…
do you call this life, or merely an occupation of emptiness?
—I've learned that forgiveness is an illusion…
and every step toward the light is nothing but an insult to the past that made you.
He paused again, a long look at the Dami, then said:
—You are here… your body present, but your soul suspended on the shore of pain,
and here we are… shaping from your silence a language yet unwritten.
—Every movement, every breath, every shiver… is not yours… it is inheritance…
our inheritance, that cannot be erased, forgiven, or killed.
The air around them thickened, as if transforming into a vessel for anxiety,
and the shadows on the walls stretched, touching the Dami's body,
as if to seal this moment of truth before Wahhab moved,
before a single new word could be written in the story of unending pain.
And from there…
from that frozen corner, where the air drank from the silence of time,
something else was born.
Not a demon, not a victim…
but a rare being, fused from human fragility and the hardness of suffering,
a spirit piercing the darkness like wind through a wall of silence,
believing it was seeking light.
It no longer asked, "Why do we hate?"
Instead, it wondered in a voice heard only by its echoes in the walls:
—What if I shaped a religion built entirely upon temples of pain?
—What if I forgave, and then etched vengeance into the hearts of all who swallowed darkness?
Winter here was not merely a beginning…
It was the burial of the child, the closing of the door to the past,
the interment of innocence with no known resting place.
And in burying it, something else was born,
something dwelling between the black waves of the soul,
something without a name…
something without mercy…
something without forgetfulness,
something writing itself anew on the walls of time,
as if a prophecy left incomplete, yet every letter groaning under the weight of the entire world.