The Lumenfall: Ashes of The Aeoncore
—Prologue
They said she fell from the sky. Wrapped in silence, blanketed by snow, her body was found in the heart of a frozen forest—breathing, but still. Alive, but hollow. No name. No trace. No past. As if her existence was completely erased.
She didn't know why she existed without anything left behind, at least her name—only giving her questions as she opened her eyes.
Without a purpose, she kept walking. A lone kid stepping through her journey without any guide. And the more she walked, the more she got lost. Lost in the middle of society. Stubborn, indeed. Until then, she decided to stay in the middle while thinking about her next step, that is the only best thing she could do.
She would sit for hours, staring into the midnight sky that was filled with sparkling stars. Her eyes gaze at it without needing a soul. Letting her mind be devoured by her own deep thoughts, imagining things that she knew wouldn't come true.
But yet—still praying for it to come true.
Like a darkness searching for the light. Trying to reach for it. Even though she knows she will fall a thousand times. She still risks her life for it.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, the air around her would hum—soft and mournful, like a lullaby sung by something ancient, something mourning its child. And she'd wake up with ash on her fingertips. But there were no fires.
Fortunately, there were some people that still had a heart to be kind to her. Even though she was just an ordinary human, weak. At least, for now. She chose not to give up.
She used her bare, small feet to walk on the cold pavement. She only followed footprints until they eventually vanished behind her. This world is unfamiliar to her. Danger could be lurking anywhere or even under her shadows.
Her body shivered as the wind struck her skin, yet she didn't dare to scream for help. She doesn't know how.
Oh how cruel it is to see a little girl walking alone in this blizzard. No one even dared to place an eye on her, because everyone already had their own shelter. Can you still call them a human when they're blinded by their own possessions?
The only one who placed an eye on her was only herself. She looked upon her hands where her fingers were too numb to curl. In this world, empathy was only worth to yourselves and not to others.
But, she stumbled when she saw a little girl around her age. Smiling so widely with a laughter muffled behind knitted sweater. Even her mother held her ever so tightly to resemble a family.
Did she have a family?
Reality began to shatter the hope 'till it crumbled to dust, and when it did, there was no way to escape from its bitterness. She didn't even remember anything about herself. Well, all that she knew was she needed to find a safe place where the wind was no longer cruel cutting through her thin fabric.
The other girl paused as she noticed something on the corner of her eyes. But as she turned her head—the girl who was bearing the cold had already gone.
The girl who once had her smile walked towards the thick glass that separated her from the outer world, even the cold could be felt as she placed her hand on the glass.
"Mother," she said.
"Yes, darling?"
A pause.
"What does it feel to be outside there?"
Then, her mother for the first time hesitated and couldn't answer her daughter's question.