Humanity.
That fragile, stubborn species, incapable of change.
It builds. It destroys.
It unites, it betrays.
Always it dreams of escaping the chains it forges itself, and always it falls—each time more broken, more hollow.
Anor'ven had watched the cycle too many times to count. Civilizations born from ash, empires swallowed by their own promises. Brotherhoods dissolved in mud and blood. Utopias collapsing under the simple weight of their own existence.
It didn't matter what he did.
It didn't matter what he refused, what he allowed.
The result remained the same: slow, methodical, silent erosion.
And this time, he knew—nothing would be different.
The flight of the group had not been an isolated incident. It was a fracture. Thin, invisible, but fatal.
In the days that followed, everything appeared unchanged. The markets remained open. The wells still drew from the depths. Children still ran through dusty alleys.
But beneath the surface, something had shifted.
Gazes turned quicker, more guarded. Conversations dried into sharp, utilitarian words. And sometimes, in corners too quiet, a man's hand would linger near a blade before remembering what it meant to survive.
Anor'ven watched. He did not intervene. His presence alone kept the fragile structure upright—a structure built not on trust, not on hope, but fear. And even that was thinning.
The crack would spread. Slowly. Surely. Without sound or ceremony.
The seasons passed—not in storms or screams, but in the dim, colorless haze of a world too tired to dream. Tents hardened into homes. Paths became roads. The market swelled. Families multiplied. A kind of city was born—not from vision, but from dread.
No one could explain why they stayed. Some claimed the world outside was worse. Others whispered that leaving was a sin the land would not forgive.
They didn't say it aloud, but they all felt it: a weight in the air, a silence that pressed down on every breath. Not law. Not faith. Only the presence. Unmoving. Watching.
Anor'ven had written no rules. Had issued no decrees. And yet, rules formed in the soil beneath his gaze, growing like roots twisted through stone.
It was forbidden to leave without approval. Forbidden to carry weapons in the open. Forbidden to raise one's voice after nightfall. No one remembered where these customs came from. No one questioned them. They were simply true.
The slightest deviation drew stares—heavy, blank, final. No one challenged them. Not from morality. Not from loyalty. But from terror. Old terror, the kind that doesn't need a name.
And within that fear, the colony endured. Not thriving. Not joyous. But upright. Breathing. Obedient.
Like a corpse that hadn't yet collapsed.
But rot doesn't wait. It moves beneath the stone. It climbs behind the eyes.
It began with small thefts—an apple, a coin pouch. Then came scuffles in the dark. No one screamed. No one confessed. Only bruises. Only silence.
A drought followed. The crops withered. Food turned bitter. Rations tightened. Children went quiet.
And the silence grew teeth.
People no longer looked each other in the eyes. No one walked the camp at night. The prayers spoken at dawn no longer asked for hope. They asked for the strength not to betray, not to give in.
One evening, a boy stole a piece of meat from the market. He was caught—not by guards, but by others. He was beaten, left unconscious on the stone while adults passed by with eyes full of nothing.
There was no trial. No judgment. Just a shared, unspeakable agreement that this was how things were now.
And still, Anor'ven did not move.
From his place atop the hill, he saw the fracture widen. He saw the threads pull loose. He saw the order crack—quietly, like ice melting under a sleeping beast.
Not with a scream. Not with a cry.
But with a shift, subtle and cold. A slow collapse that began beneath the skin, deep within the breath of things.
What he had tried to hold together—what he had tried, perhaps, to delay—had never stood a chance.
His silence had not spared humanity from itself. His presence had not erased the flaw written in every hand, every choice, every glance.
He had only slowed the fall.
Stretched the breath. Prolonged the agony.
And soon, he knew, it would begin again.
Not here.
Not now.
But elsewhere.
With other names. Other faces.
For as long as the human soul endured, the ruin would return.
And he would be there.
Watching.
Again.
Always.