Chapter one:
THE VALLEY OF ILLUSIONS
The Forgotten Valley had always been a place of legends and contradictions, a realm where truth and illusion intertwined. Some claimed it was a paradise untouched by time, while others whispered that it was a prison crafted by unseen hands.
Not many had the experience but afew who did could never confirm or deny it...They just didn't understand what had happened to the mountain hickers that got lost.
These catastrophic episodes were too far apart for anyone to take them seriously. So when it happened to Proffessor Adrian The nondescriptical Dean of studies in The Department of History and Religious Studies a Leading University in the Kingdom. Nobody would be bothered to know what, why or how it happened. The College life buzzed as always oblivious to what went on around it.
The author of the book:-
"The Mythology of Ancient Civillization"
Just dissapeared into thin air without anybody being bothered...except the begger across the street!
To Prof.Adrian it was a nightmare like no other....
Born to a mother of a very common heritage, he had spent his childhood in a small village very far from the busy burstling city, unaware of the storm that would one day pull him into a world beyond mortal comprehension. A Truth too fictious to be anything but that fiction.uncomprehensible.
Where he found himself the air itself was saturated with ancient energy, and the mountains whispered secrets too complicated and incomprehensible to the unworthy.
Yet, deep within him, a fire burned—an inheritance unknown to him, a legacy buried beneath layers of mortal existence.
*The Ascent
The cold mountain air had stung Adrian's lungs as he trudged higher, his boots crunching against the frost-bitten ground. He paused, hands on his knees, exhaling ragged breaths. The world below had shrunk into a patchwork of green and gray, the university town where he had spent two decades of his life now nothing more than a distant speck of dust.
A gust of wind howled through the towering cliffs, rattling the loose rocks beneath his feet. He looked up. The summit was close, but an unsettling sensation crept over him—the kind that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was too quiet. No birds, no rustling leaves, no distant echoes from the valley below.
Just silence.
Adrian swallowed hard, gripping the straps of his backpack. Maybe it was the altitude. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the weight of his own life pressing down on him. He had nothing left—no job, no family, no purpose. This climb had been his last act of deviance, a desperate attempt to escape the life that had crumbled around him.
And yet, standing here, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was not alone.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. He turned sharply, scanning the jagged rocks. Nothing.
He pressed forward.
As he crested the ridge, his breath hitched. Before him stretched a valley unlike anything he had ever seen—vast, untouched, hidden from the world. The air here was different, heavier, yet strangely invigorating. Lush green forests blanketed the slopes, winding rivers shimmered in the distance, and at the heart of it all, nestled like a secret long forgotten, was a village.
Adrian frowned. This place hadn't been on any maps he knew of.
A strange warmth spread through his chest. He had spent his life studying ancient myths, lost civilizations, forgotten cultures. Fictious or otherwise he had read them all,Yet, standing here, he felt like he had stepped into one.
He took a cautious step forward. The moment his foot touched the floor, a whisper brushed against his ear.
"Welcome home."
He whirled around. No one was there.
But the village below seemed closer than before. As if it had been waiting.
For how long?