The world did not notice when it lost something.
There was no scream.
No tearing of the sky.
No sudden stillness in the air.
History continued uninterrupted.
Cities slept.
Rivers flowed.
The sun rose exactly where it always had.
And yet—
something that should have been there was not.
Long ago, before the ruins were called ruins, the gods ruled openly.
They spoke from mountains, judged from thrones of light, and walked among mortals without disguise. The land knew their voices. The people knew their fear.
Then came the Battle.
No record agrees on how it began.
Some claim the gods fought for dominion.
Others say for survival.
A few speak of a throne that had been left empty.
What is known is this:
The land broke.
The heavens burned.
And when the war ended, the gods were gone.
Or so the world believed.
A new civilization rose from the wreckage.
Temples became foundations.
Divine corpses weathered into nameless stone.
Old prayers softened into superstitions whispered to children.
People learned to live without gods.
They told themselves the world was better for it.
And yet—
there were places where sound felt thinner.
Streets where footsteps softened.
Rooms where words lost weight.
Corners of the world where memory hesitated, as if deciding whether something had ever existed at all.
No one noticed these places for what they were.
No one remembered why they felt wrong.
Beneath the cities, far below the reach of daylight, a man continued to write.
He wrote what the world no longer could.
Names no one spoke.
Events no one recalled.
Truths erased so completely that even absence had forgotten them.
He did not interfere.
He did not warn.
He only bore witness.
That was his curse.
Once, as his pen hovered above an empty page, he whispered into the dark:
"When the world forgets something, it is not gone.
It is being carried."
The page remained blank.
The truth was not ready to return.
Far above, in a district built upon older ruins, a young man stood alone.
Xiel did not know why he had come there.
The street had no name.
The buildings leaned like tired witnesses.
The air felt… thinner.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Then—
for a moment that should not have existed—
the world fell silent.
Not empty.
Listening.
Something unseen reached for him.
Something ancient.
Something broken.
Something that had already paid a price too great to be remembered.
Xiel staggered.
His breath caught.
And in the space between heartbeats, a thought not his own brushed against his mind.
Not a command.
Not a plea.
Only—
…So you noticed it too.
The silence shattered.
Sound rushed back too quickly, too clumsily.
Xiel fell to his knees, gasping, his hands trembling against the stone.
The street looked unchanged.
The world moved on.
No one saw him.
No one felt what had almost been spoken.
Somewhere beyond sight, beyond memory, beyond even forgetting—
balance shifted.
A truth loosened.
And far away, where even gods no longer looked,
something that should not have been remembered
was finally noticed again.