Some stories begin with power.This one begins with love.
In a small village beneath an endless sky, people learned early how fragile life could be. Not from books or warnings, but from watching seasons change too quickly, from burying the old, from holding the newborn and hoping the earth would be kind.
Parents worried quietly here. They loved loudly.
Children were raised by more than blood. Neighbors watched each other's doorways. Elders remembered what others forgot. No one truly lived alone.
At night, lanterns glowed softly inside round huts, pushing back the dark just enough for families to eat, talk, and rest. Their light was warm. Familiar. Trusted.
But trust, even when earned, could be dangerous.
Fire was part of life. It cooked meals. It lit prayers. It kept fear at a distance. And so people learned to live beside it, careful but unafraid.
Most nights passed without incident.
Most nights, nothing went wrong.
There was a boy in the village who worked hard and slept deeply. A boy whose hands were already rough from the land, whose body carried the weight of long days. A boy loved enough that his parents worried even when there was no reason to.
They believed he would be fine.They believed tomorrow would come.
In villages like this, tragedy never announces itself. It waits for silence. It waits for exhaustion. It waits for a single moment when love believes it has done enough.
And when it comes, it leaves behind questions that never sleep.
What if I had checked one more time?What if I had listened to that feeling?What if love had been louder than hope?
Long after the fire cooled, long after the ashes settled, those questions would remain.
And so would the boy.Not as he was, but as what remained.