The ground cracked beneath my steps.
Not from weight.
Not from force.
But from time itself,
bending and fraying where I passed.
But this time,
I was not alone.
Not because I sought companions.
Not because I welcomed them.
But because behind me,
woven into the dust,
men had begun to follow.
They built altars where my feet had brushed the earth.
They carved names onto stones, walls, even their own skins.
They spoke of me with reverence,
with fear,
with blind hunger.
They prayed at the places where my shadow had lingered.
They sang songs of my virtues.
Of miracles I had never performed.
Of destinies I had never touched.
I had done nothing.
Said nothing.
But it did not matter.
An orphan I had crossed became a "child of the sky."
A withered tree I had passed became a "holy relic."
A village I had ignored became "sacred ground."
Every gesture,
every silence,
every absence,
woven into prophecy.
They said I guided the just.
That I destroyed the wicked.
That I chose rulers among men.
They adored me.
They feared me.
They begged for my favor.
And still,
I walked.
Their voices grew louder.
Their stories grew heavier.
Their hands grew sharper.
One day, they built a throne.
A mound of stones and shattered bones,
erected atop a naked hill,
stripped bare by the wind.
They led me there in a procession —
singing, shouting, weeping.
Banners, stitched from bloodstained cloth,
waved in the broken sky.
At the summit,
the throne awaited.
Their eyes awaited.
Full of hope.
Full of hunger.
I climbed the hill.
Slowly.
Without illusion.
At the summit,
I passed the throne.
Without word.
Without blessing.
I walked on.
The silence behind me fractured.
At first, whispers.
Then shouts.
Then screams.
The faithful turned on each other.
Prayers became curses.
Songs became war cries.
And the hill —
became a slaughterhouse.
**
I watched as the first stone was thrown.
It struck a man on the temple,
cracking flesh and bone.
He staggered back,
blood pouring into the dust.
A woman lunged at another,
a shard of broken pottery flashing in her hand.
She drove it into a neighbor's throat.
He collapsed, gurgling.
Others followed.
Fists.
Rocks.
Knives pulled from belts, sharpened on stones.
They struck blindly,
with fury,
with terror.
Brothers battered brothers.
Mothers clawed at daughters.
Old men crushed skulls with staffs.
Screams ripped the air.
The dust turned black with blood.
Teeth and fingers and entrails scattered the ground like broken offerings.
The faithful.
The righteous.
Tearing each other apart under the eye of a silent god.
I watched without blinking.
They bled for a name.
For a glance.
For a dream that had never belonged to them.
The throne crumbled under the weight of corpses.
The hill split open,
soaked in death.
I did not intervene.
I did not speak.
I turned my back to the massacre,
and walked into the wind.
**
I was not their god.
Not their king.
Not their salvation.
I was a shadow.
A remnant.
A breath of a world already dead.
They could worship me.
They could curse me.
It changed nothing.
The wind carried a name.
Anor'Ven.
Again and again.
A name they had chosen.
A name born from fear,
from longing,
from shattered faith.
It was never mine.
I kept walking.
Deaf to their cries.
Deaf to their prayers.
Deaf to a world
that no longer spoke to me.