They came at dawn.
Not like beasts.
Not like savages.
But like men.
Men too calm to be good.
Their skin bore marks of war.
Their arms carried rough but solid weapons —
stone axes, gnarled clubs, spiked sticks.
They marched in a line.
Straight toward us.
Without a word.
Without a shout.
And at once,
what little was left of the tribe
broke into panic.
She stood up.
Her eyes were no longer those of a girl,
but of a hunted animal.
I tried to speak.
But once again, nothing came.
So I raised my spear.
They said nothing.
No warning.
No hesitation.
They attacked.
Clean strikes.
Bodies thrown.
Bones broken.
They had not come to take.
Not to talk.
They had come to finish
what the fire had started.
I struck.
I blocked their way.
A blow to the ribs.
A cut across the throat.
A leg broken.
I fell.
I rose.
Again.
Always.
But they rose too.
More of them.
Faster.
I could not stop them all.
I knew it.
But I kept fighting.
She was running.
I followed.
She screamed.
I roared.
One man rushed at her.
Too fast.
Too brutal.
She tried to flee.
He grabbed her by the hair.
She scratched at him.
He raised his blade.
I arrived —
one second too late.
The blade fell.
The blood burst.
She fell.
She trembled.
And then —
nothing.
There was a void.
A long silence.
Vaster than the sky.
Older than memory.
Everything stopped.
The cries.
The blows.
Even my breath.
I looked at her.
Lying there.
Broken.
Gone.
Her.
No scream.
No word.
No vow.
Only the cold.
The emptiness.
The fracture inside me opening once more.
Something rose.
Slow.
Deep.
Burning.
Not grief.
Not despair.
Something darker.
Older.
Vaster.
I tightened my grip on the spear.
I stood up.
But a sound cut through the air.
A breath —
behind me.
I had no time.
The blow landed.
Clean.
Brutal.
The club struck my skull.
The ground disappeared.
And the darkness swallowed everything.
When my eyes opened again,
there was nothing left.
The men were gone,
taking with them the smoke,
the blood,
the heat.
Everything.
The fire had died.
The wind was silent.
The bodies… still.
She was no longer there.
I could not even find her eyes.
I stayed sitting.
For a long time.
Too long.
No tears.
No words.
No screams.
Only silence.
The same silence that always returns.
At last,
I stood.
And I walked.
Not toward a place.
Not toward a goal.
Just… farther.
Again.
I am the last memory of a world already forgetting.
A remnant that refuses to fall.
A beast that can no longer die.
And so began the wandering.
And so began the name.
The one that would cross the ages.
But that name —
was not yet spoken.