The rain didn't fall. It simply hung in the air, suspended like a half-remembered dream—like guilt.
In the valley of Varn, where ancient empires were buried not beneath earth, but silence, a man stood alone before the ruins of a forgotten shrine. The wind carried no scent, no song, only a stillness that pierced deeper than any blade.
His cloak was tattered. His hair, soaked in rain, clung to the sharp contours of his face. His eyes? They held a thousand unspoken truths. Not hollow. Just distant. Like a man who had crossed oceans of grief, only to arrive at a shore where even memory refused to follow.
Once, he had a name. A title. Prince Saran of Light, the people had called him. A savior, a star, a divine messenger. But titles are paper, and people are fire. The crown was taken, the truth buried, and now, in every recorded scroll, his name was carved out with ink darker than sin.
Now they called him The Heretic Without Time.
He opened the object he carried in his hand—a book bound in gray leather, ancient and breathing. Not literally, but somehow alive. It pulsed, faintly, like it heard things. Saw things. It was called a Chronicle. Blank pages, yet heavy as regret.
He opened it to a page that did not exist yesterday.
> This world was never built on facts, Only belief.
The words appeared as he thought them.
Behind him, shadows moved. Three men—no, monks—in rust-colored robes stood still under the weeping sky. Their eyes were pale, void of doubt, filled only with belief in something greater. In judgment. In the sacred order.
"You shouldn't exist," one of them said, voice trembling between reverence and fear. He raised a jagged blade wrapped in scripture.
"You were erased. Burned in history."
Saran turned to them. Slowly.
His lips moved slightly, almost in apology. "I know."
He glanced down at the Chronicle. The page shimmered as his thoughts spilled into it:
> Let their blades rust with doubt.
The monks advanced. One step. Two.
And then—stillness. As if something ancient shifted around them.
The first monk's hand trembled. The blade dropped. The second dropped to his knees, clutching his head.
The third? He began to scream.
Not out of pain. But because he could no longer remember why he was here. Or who he was following. Or what crime this man had committed.
Their faith was unraveling.
He walked past them, the rain parting slightly as if nature itself hesitated to touch him. Not as a man. Not even as a ghost. But as a question.
And behind him, the Chronicle whispered to no one:
> The gods are watching. Keep writing.
---
He wandered deeper into the ruin, where idols once stood. Now, only broken stone faces and fractured prayers remained.
He sat beneath a shattered archway. Lightning split the sky, but he didn't flinch.
Memories pressed against the edges of his mind. A girl's laughter. A father's promise. A city burning. His own hands soaked in blood he didn't remember shedding.
He flipped to a new page.
> They said I betrayed the kingdom.
But the kingdom had already betrayed itself.
He closed the book.
A whisper rode the wind, soft and thin.
"You cannot outrun what you are."
He turned. A figure stood at the edge of the ruin. Cloaked in shadow. Familiar.
"Then let it catch me," Saran replied.
The figure chuckled. "The Chronicle listens to you. That makes you dangerous."
Saran nodded. "Not because I write truth. But because I write questions."
He stepped forward. The rain stopped. Not because the storm passed, but because it feared him now.
---
Somewhere, far from Varn, a scribe dipped his pen into red ink. He scratched out a name from the scroll of absolutes. Again. The fifth time this year.
But that name kept coming back.
Saran.
A name that would not die. A soul that questioned even divinity.
A man who shouldn't exist.
---
> "When all faith collapses, only one truth remains: the silence inside you."
And in that silence, he walked on.