ASHES OF A FORGOTTEN AGE CHAPTER ONE — THE ROOM WITHOUT A SOURCE OF LIGHT
Cold seeped into my bones long before my eyes opened.
Not the short-lived chill of a bad night's sleep, but a deeper cold — the kind that came from stone, age, and places built to hold more silence than warmth.
When consciousness finally dragged me to the surface, I didn't move. My body lay stiff on something uneven, something that scratched against my skin. I kept my breathing shallow and my eyes half-closed, listening.
Wind.
A faint crackle.
Something dripping slowly.
And underneath it all, the heavy quiet of an unfamiliar place.
I opened my eyes.
A ceiling of rough wooden beams stared back at me. Thick, dark, uneven. No polish, no paint, no plaster — just raw wood and the smell of it. I followed the lines with my gaze, tracing the grooves, the knots, the gaps stuffed with straw. Everything looked handmade. Primitive. Foreign.
My heartbeat jumped.
I sat up slowly, letting the world settle into focus. My hands touched the straw bed, then my clothes — coarse fabric, simple stitching. Not mine.
A slow breath escaped me.
The room was small, stone-walled, dim. A faint glow pushed against the darkness from the corner, the warm flicker of a dying fire. No electric bulb. No fan. No screen. No hum of anything modern.
Something thickened in my chest.
Where… am I?
I pushed myself to my feet. The cold stone floor bit into my soles. I steadied my breathing and forced logic to override panic.
The walls were built from uneven blocks, sealed with clay, not cement. The wooden door looked ancient — heavy, iron-riveted by hand. The window was a slit, barely more than an arrow hole. Light leaked in cold and pale.
The air smelled of smoke… but not petrol smoke. Wood. Tallow. Something earthy.
I moved to the window, slowly, quietly. My skin — dark and warm even in the cold light — contrasted sharply against the gray stone as I pressed my hand against it.
Outside, I saw only mist. And beyond the mist, shadows of steep roofs, crooked chimneys, and distant trees swaying in an unfamiliar wind.
This wasn't a hospital.
Or a set.
Or anywhere I recognized.
A slow ache bloomed behind my eyes.
"What is this…?"
My voice sounded too loud in the quiet room.
I checked myself — muscles responsive, senses sharp, memories intact. Everything inside my mind felt like me. My thoughts, instincts, the way I scanned the room out of habit, the way I catalogued every detail — all unchanged.
But my body felt younger. Not weak — just… rewound. Lines I'd grown used to seeing in the mirror were gone.
I stared at my reflection in a dented piece of polished metal leaning against the wall. My dark skin glowed faintly in the firelight, smooth, unblemished, unmistakably mine — just younger. My eyes were still sharp, still calculating. The face staring back was me, but not the version I last remembered.
A thin band of tension pulled across my chest.
"Either I'm dreaming," I muttered, "or something impossible just happened."
I didn't like either option.
I moved again, slower now, checking for anything that could ground me. A cup carved from wood. A clay jug. Iron tools, shaped unevenly. I picked up a small knife — its blade was rough, hammered, and unrefined. Not steel as I knew it.
My breath caught.
The craftsmanship wasn't modern. Or even close.
Before I could think further, faint footsteps approached outside the door. Soft ones — too light to be an adult.
I stepped back automatically, posture shifting without thought.
The door creaked open.
A girl stood there. Small. Barefoot. Hair tangled. Brown eyes too large for her face. She froze when she saw I was awake, gripping the wooden frame as if ready to run.
For a moment, we simply stared at each other.
Her gaze flicked over me — my height, my dark skin, my unfamiliar clothes. Her expression held curiosity… and a fear she tried to hide poorly.
"You're… awake," she whispered.
Her accent was odd. Not British. Not American. Not Nigerian. Something old, something rural.
My mouth felt dry.
"…Where is this?" I asked quietly.
She blinked at the question, surprised. "You don't know?"
I shook my head.
Her fingers tightened on the doorframe.
"Mama said… you should come downstairs. If you can walk."
She hesitated, then added:
"And… don't try anything strange."
I almost laughed — not because it was funny, but because the entire situation felt so unsteady I needed something to anchor myself. I swallowed the reaction and nodded instead.
"I won't."
She stepped back, keeping distance as I followed her out of the small room.
The corridor was narrow and dim, lit by scattered embers from a hearth in the main space. The house was old — older than anything a sane person would live in back home. The stones were uneven. The beams were warped. Everything smelled of smoke, earth, and years.
Downstairs, a woman stirred a pot over the fire. Her hair was tied back, her clothes thick and worn. Her back was straight, posture tense. When she turned, her eyes went immediately to me — sharp, measuring, ready.
Her gaze lingered on my skin, my height, the cut of my jaw. Something flickered in her expression — not prejudice, but confusion. Like she wasn't used to seeing someone who looked like me.
She didn't speak at first. The silence stretched, thick and cautious.
Finally, she said:
"You woke near the river. My daughter saw you first. You weren't breathing right."
Her tone had no warmth. No hostility either. Just a hard, practical edge.
I didn't look away. "Thank you."
She studied me with the same scrutiny I'd used on the room earlier.
"You don't speak like us," she said.
"And you don't dress like anyone from nearby."
I felt my pulse thump once.
"I'm… trying to understand where I am."
Her jaw tightened a little.
"Then you're not a traveler."
I didn't answer. Not yet.
She gestured to a wooden stool. "Sit. Eat something before you fall again."
A bowl of steaming porridge was placed in front of me. Thick. Grainy. Not rice. Not oats I recognized. Something older.
I didn't touch it immediately.
"Can you tell me what this place is called?" I asked.
Both the woman and child exchanged a quick glance — small, but telling.
"Do you truly not know?" the mother asked.
"No," I said honestly. "I don't."
She exhaled once, slowly.
"This is the village of Brackenford. In the northern holdings of Lord Caldus."
None of the names meant anything.
Not a single one.
My heart sank through my ribs.
"Alright," I whispered to myself. "That's… new."
The woman narrowed her eyes slightly.
"You speak strangely. Your skin is unlike any man in these parts. You woke with no memory of where you came from."
She paused.
"Until the wardens arrive, I will treat you as a lost soul. Not a spy. Not a madman."
Wardens.
Lord Caldus.
Village.
North.
Pieces slowly shifted in my mind, forming an outline of something vast and unknown.
Not modern Europe.
Not colonial history.
Not Nigeria.
Not any era I recognized.
The girl watched me with quiet fascination.
"You looked like you were dead," she said softly.
"But you're not."
Her mother shot her a look, but I found myself answering anyway.
"No," I murmured. "Feels like I just… ended up somewhere else."
Somewhere ancient.
Somewhere isolated.
Somewhere that shouldn't exist.
And the worst part?
There was nothing in the room — no object, no sound, no detail — that linked this place to the world I knew.
A slow shiver crawled up my spine.
How far from home am I, really?