It started as a class suggestion—a vague idea from their professor, who had a reputation for cryptic remarks and odd inspirations.
"If you want to understand design," he said during one lecture, "don't just study buildings. Study purpose. Study what was forgotten."
He left a location on the board. No context. Just a name that didn't even sound real.
The Nameless Shrine.
Most students ignored it, writing it off as one of his eccentricities. But Rai, intrigued by the obscurity and the silence around the name, brought it to the group.
At first, they joked about it. A forgotten shrine in the middle of nowhere? Sounded more like a ghost story than inspiration. But something in Rai's voice when he suggested it… something quiet and firm… convinced them.
So they packed up. A weekend trip. No expectations.
The shrine was buried deep within a forest, the kind of place that didn't show up on normal maps. It took them hours of travel, half of it on foot, hacking through overgrown paths and ducking under low branches. The further they went, the quieter everything became.
The sounds of the world seemed to peel away, layer by layer, until even the wind sounded distant.
And then, they found it.
Two crumbling stone pillars marked the entrance. Half-covered in moss, the runes on them had been worn down by time. Nature had reclaimed everything, yet something about the air changed the moment they stepped beyond those pillars.
A pressure. A hum.
Like the earth was holding its breath.
Inside, the shrine was massive—larger than it had any right to be. The first chamber was circular, the walls carved with worn patterns that hinted at once-glorious murals. Four giant statues surrounded the room, each vaguely humanoid but misshapen. Fire. Water. Earth. Air. Their forms were cracked, defaced, almost violently destroyed.
"What happened here?" Marin whispered.
"They weren't destroyed by time," Owen said, crouching beside a shattered pedestal. "This was deliberate."
Cyrus let out a low whistle. "Someone wanted to erase them."
Emma stood before the central platform—a smooth, circular base with nothing on it. Unlike the others, it was untouched.
"This was sacred," she murmured. "Everything else was broken… but not this."
Rai's fingers brushed across the base. His scar pulsed.
He didn't say anything. But he felt it. Something was stirring beneath this place. Something long buried.
The air grew colder.
They found old inscriptions on the walls—runes and stories carved in spirals, mostly eroded by time. Marin and Ronald tried to interpret them, piecing together fragments.
"Looks like… guardians," Ronald said. "Protectors of something. But it's fragmented."
"And these figures," Marin added, pointing at carvings that looked like cloaked beings holding strange orbs. "They weren't gods. They were people. Architects of something powerful."
A long pause settled.
"What were they protecting?" Cyrus asked.
Rai stepped back from the pedestal. "Not a thing. An idea."
That night, they camped nearby, too intrigued to leave. The fire crackled between them. Conversation turned quieter, more thoughtful.
Emma sat beside Rai, her voice soft. "You felt it, didn't you?"
He nodded slowly.
"This place… it's not just history. It's a message."
And deep down, Rai felt something shift inside him. A thread, tugging from the past, pulling him toward something he didn't understand.
But he would.
Soon.