PSA: After some well deserved criticism, I'm going over the older characters to make the situation going on with sunny clearer, as between my oversights and translation quite a bit got lost.
In an ever-shifting, formless place—an un-place—there existed a thing, once known as Az, now lost, foreign, and forgotten. It hurtled toward a nameless temple, a place where time itself seemed to warp and bend. In its fractured state, the thing sought something it could no longer fully remember, something that once felt familiar. It searched, aimless and incomplete, only to find the echo of a story it had once known—before it all fell away.
The forgotten thing, now little more than a wisp of memory, began to recall what it once was. It remembered growing up in a world not unlike ours, yet concealed beneath the veil of the ordinary, where unseen forces, beyond mortal comprehension, silently wove and twisted the very fabric of reality itself. When his father, a once sturdy man, fell gravely ill, Az, still but a boy, was forced to walk a path he never anticipated—one that led him into the dark, shadowy embrace of the Celik crime family, the fastest-rising gang in the heart of Europe.
With few choices left, Az served the family with loyalty and devotion, quickly earning their trust and rising through their ranks. His rise was as swift as it was inevitable. Years passed, and the family, recognizing his dedication, rewarded Az with a glimpse into a world few could imagine—a world where ancient rituals played out as if they were mere games, where friendships were not mere bonds but blood-sworn pacts, where promises were sealed with an otherworldly weight. Behind the façade of the family's empire, beings of unimaginable power, creatures with the capricious innocence and whimsy of children, held sway. A balance between fear and fascination kept Az alive and thriving—until, inevitably, it did not.
As the years wore on, Az slowly became nothing more than a ghost in the shadows. Forgotten by those he had once called allies, he faded like an old, fraying shadow, slipping unnoticed into the abyss. The world, it seemed, had no place for him. Abandoned and ignored, Az was destined to become a casualty of time, lost in the endless sea of forgotten things.
Yet, even as he felt himself dissolving into nothingness, a flicker of his essence—a fragment of what he once was—refused to be lost. Az, or what little of him remained, did not wish to vanish into the void. He clung desperately to the remnants of his existence, and in his final act, he cried out—begged—for help. And, somehow, his plea was heard.
A friend, the very last to remember him, could not bear to see Az fade entirely. In its innocent, childlike mind, it searched for a way to preserve its friend, to give him a second chance. The answer came in an unlikely form—a boy named Sunnless. Sunnless was a child born into the harshest of circumstances, a life steeped in the cruelest poverty. He had lost his family, his identity, and now, he was nothing more than a slave, bound in chains both physical and unseen. But to the being, Sunnless was a vessel—a blank canvas upon which it could place the remnants of Az.
In its naive understanding, the being cast Az's fragments into the slave's fragile soul, unaware of how utterly incompatible their existences were. Their very natures, it seemed, were worlds apart. Their souls were forged differently, their essence fundamentally different in ways even the being could not understand. Yet, it persisted—again, and again, and again—until it learned the lesson, after the third failed attempt.
A fractal of unimaginable complexity—a web of alternating patterns—descended upon both the slave and the incomplete thing. It was a blessing, a boon, a gift wrapped in mystery and power. But it came at a cost. The being could not retrieve what had been lost. Az, in his entirety, was gone forever, swallowed by time. And so, with a heavy heart, the being did what it could: it gave the two—Sunnless and Az's remnants—the means to create something new, something in less time. It hoped that, through the remaining fragments of Az's essence, the boy might grow—might, in some way, become a replacement for the lost friend.
Yet, even with all its power, the being could not change the fundamental truth: Sunnless and the incomplete Az could never truly be the same. Their very beings were too different, their souls too dissimilar. And so, with a deep, inevitable sigh, the being flung its net across them both and forced the two, through sheer will and magic, to become one.
As the process neared its end, as the final threads of the child wove themselves together, something shifted. A new voice, unquestioned in strength, echoed through the silence!.