The faint crackle of dry paper echoed softly as Denato turned the next page of the old notebook in his hands. The rough texture of the page brushed gently against his fingertips — brittle, almost fragile, as though time itself had pressed its weight upon it for far too long. The faded ink lines still lingered there, thin but enduring, and the faint smell of aged paper mixed with dust hung in the still air of the room.
Sunlight from the late morning streamed weakly through the narrow window, dimmed by a thick coat of dust clinging to the glass. The light fell upon the page in front of him, scattering into tiny rays that revealed drifting particles suspended in the air. Those golden specks shimmered faintly as they floated, and for a moment, Denato's golden eyes followed their slow, delicate dance.
He felt as if the light itself was guiding him — quietly urging him to continue reading, even though his heart carried confusion, a faint unease, and the lingering ache of memories he could not recall.
As he turned to the next page, the thought formed clearly in his mind:
he should remember everyone who lived in this place — each face, each voice, each written name. These pages were not just a record, but fragments of souls that once breathed within these walls. If he could remember them all, maybe he would understand who he truly was… and what kind of world this truly is.
But no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts dissolved like mist in the morning light. Every time he reached for a memory, it slipped away — just out of reach. His mind was a mirror with no reflection. He couldn't recall the faces he had seen, or the words he might have spoken. He couldn't tell whether he belonged here or not.
It was as if the threads of his memory had been cut apart and scattered, leaving him to pick up the pieces in silence. A dull ache grew behind his chest, but he didn't stop. Instead, he took a breath, steady and quiet, and continued to read.
On the next page, familiar handwriting stretched neatly across the paper — the same author who had written all the notes before. The strokes were clean but firm, pressed into the page as though each word had weight and purpose.
"Next — Kael Draven.
A man with short black hair tinted gold, and eyes the color of sunlight.
He is the one who brings money to sustain this place.
He doesn't come here often.
Even after I had been here three days, I still never saw him in person…"
Denato's eyes lingered on the name for a long moment.
Kael Draven.
The name sounded heavy — powerful, almost noble in its simplicity. It did not sound like the name of a caretaker or an orphan, but of someone shaped by both light and hardship. The syllables rolled in his mind with a strange familiarity he couldn't explain. It stirred something faint and wordless deep within him — not recognition, but something close to it.
Outside, the sunlight dimmed as a slow-moving cloud passed over the sky. The warm light faded into a pale gray glow that seeped through the dusty windowpanes, softening the edges of the room. The air grew slightly cooler. Denato could hear the faint hum of wind slipping through the cracks of the glass, brushing the side of his face like a sigh.
He kept reading.
"But Miss Alenya once told me why he helps here.
She said Kael was her friend back when they were both at this orphanage.
When she returned here to take care of the children, he decided to help her.
Though he rarely appears, many of the things the children use — food, clothes, books — come from him."
Each word seeped slowly into Denato's heart.
Through those lines, he could feel a quiet warmth — the kind that didn't need to be spoken aloud.
This man, Kael Draven, though unseen, seemed to hold the structure of this place together through invisible hands. Even in absence, his presence lingered — in the walls, the tables, the books, and the small, unnoticed things that kept life moving here.
Denato closed his eyes for a brief moment and tried to imagine him.
A man with short, dark hair that shimmered faintly gold when struck by light — like a fading ember still holding warmth. Eyes the color of molten metal, sharp but calm. He seemed like someone who didn't speak much, yet his silence carried more meaning than a thousand words. There was an aura of stillness around him, the same stillness one feels when standing before a storm that has yet to begin.
Perhaps, Denato thought, Kael wore a long coat, the hem frayed by travel. Dust might cling to his boots from long roads. His right cheek might carry a faint scar — not deep, but enough to tell a story he chose not to speak about. He could see him standing by a dim lantern, light flickering in his golden eyes, his shadow stretching long and quiet across a stone floor.
The room fell silent again.
Denato could hear nothing but his own slow breathing, the faint scrape of the chair beneath him, and the distant hum of wind pressing against the window frame. The air felt still — the kind of silence that carried weight.
He continued to read.
"Even though I've never met him, never spoken to him, and barely know anything about him…
from everything I've heard — he must be someone truly special."
The last sentence was short, yet it lingered in his chest longer than any before it. The handwriting here was slightly darker, the pen pressed harder into the paper, as if the writer wanted to make sure the word special would never fade.
Denato stared at that word for a while. Special.
He didn't know why, but it echoed within him — like a memory he had lost but could still feel.
Slowly, he turned the page.
The dry paper rustled softly beneath his touch, a whisper that filled the quiet air.
But when the next page came into view — there was nothing.
A blank expanse of paper stretched before him, empty and untouched. No ink, no words, no marks at all. Just white — pure and still.
He froze for a moment.
The emptiness of the page reflected the emptiness within his mind.
A heavy silence settled in the room.
The ticking of an old clock on the wall echoed faintly — tick... tick... tick... — as if counting the distance between the last word written and the space that followed.
He realized then that this was the final page.
The end of the notebook.
His hands closed the book gently, and the soft thud of the cover echoed like the closing of a distant memory. The leather surface was cracked and faded, its texture rough but warm. A faint beam of gray light slid across the surface of the book, illuminating the scars of time carved into it.
He laid it carefully on the wooden desk, beside a few other books that sat in quiet stillness, covered in dust. The air smelled faintly of old paper, wood, and something else — something almost like nostalgia.
For a moment, he didn't move.
He just sat there, eyes unfocused, mind drifting through everything he had read.
The names repeated quietly in his mind — Alenya. Venara. Kael.
Each name carried its own weight, its own color. Together they painted an image of this world: a city divided by rank and shadow, by hierarchy and necessity — yet still bound together by people who tried to do good, even when the world itself did not.
His gaze wandered across the room.
The desk was rough and worn, the grain of the wood carved with faint lines — as if years of use had written their own history upon it. The corners were chipped. The surface bore small cracks, yet it was steady, dependable, like the people whose lives had once filled this place.
Beside it sat a small drawer, left slightly ajar.
Through the narrow opening, he could see the edges of other books — some thin, others thick — their spines marked with faint lettering that time had begun to erase.
He pulled one out gently and flipped it open. Inside were diagrams, city layouts, and brief notes about the world — the city of Tessalon, its structures, its divisions, its people. But after a moment, he closed it again. He wasn't ready.
"I can always come back to read it later,"
he whispered to himself, voice soft as breath.
The sound barely reached beyond his own lips. It wasn't meant for anyone else to hear.
One by one, he placed each notebook and book carefully back into the drawer. The gentle rustle of pages and the scrape of wood filled the room — slow, deliberate, and strangely comforting. When everything was in its place, he pushed the drawer shut. The latch clicked softly, a small but final sound that seemed to settle the air itself.
He leaned back in his chair, and it creaked under his weight — an old, tired sound that blended perfectly with the silence of the room. Above him, the ceiling bore faint stains and cracks, lines that mapped out the quiet decay of years.
The light filtering through the window had softened to a pale silver hue. It brushed across his face, across the desk, and across the notebook that now lay still. The air held a kind of peace — fragile, but real.
Denato closed his eyes.
His thoughts began to slow.
The questions that once stormed in his mind now softened into a single, quiet thought —
"Who am I… in this world?"
The question lingered — unanswered, but alive.
It floated silently within the cold air of Tessalon, a city where nature was a memory and the sky forever gray.
Outside, the wind moved through narrow streets lined with old buildings and hollow lights. There were no birds, no green leaves, no warmth — only the faint echo of life surviving amidst concrete and steel.
The soft rhythm of Denato's breathing lingered in the still air of the room. Silence enveloped the space so completely that even the faintest rustle of wind through the old window could be heard. The breeze slipped through narrow cracks in the wooden frame, carrying a subtle whistle — like the whisper of time itself moving quietly through forgotten places.
He slowly rose from the chair, moving with a kind of careful grace. His legs felt slightly stiff from sitting for so long, reading the worn notebook that now rested closed on the table behind him. The weight that had been sitting in his chest eased just a little, replaced by a familiar curiosity beginning to stir once again — a need to understand where he was.
As he stood fully upright, the floorboards beneath him creaked softly — a fragile eeehh sound that echoed faintly against the wooden walls. Each footstep carried the subtle echo of age, the scent of old timber mingling with a thin layer of dust that lingered in the air.
When his gaze swept around the room again, he noticed how small it truly was. Modest. Ordinary. A room meant for one person, with little beyond what was necessary to survive. There was a worn wooden table, a simple bed with a flattened mattress, and a wardrobe standing against the far wall.
His eyes stopped on the wardrobe. It drew him in somehow — not because it was beautiful, but because it seemed out of place in its cleanliness.
The wardrobe was made of plain wood, its surface marked by the passage of years. Faint scratches and scuffs trailed along its sides like ghostly reminders of hands that had opened and closed it long ago. Despite its age, it stood steady and dignified, like something that had endured quietly through time. A slant of pale sunlight from the window fell across it, turning the wooden grain into shifting golden lines that flickered faintly with the movement of the wind.
Denato stepped closer. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, the kind of chill that traveled upward, urging caution in every step. When his hand reached the wardrobe, his fingertips brushed against the surface. The texture was rough, coated in dust so fine it clung to his skin like a memory.
He pressed gently.
Creaaak…
The wardrobe door opened with a slow, groaning sound — the sound of wood rubbing against wood after too many silent years.
A faint musty smell wafted out. It wasn't unpleasant, just old — the scent of stored fabric and long stillness. Inside, clothes hung neatly on simple wooden hangers. There weren't many of them — seven or eight sets in total, arranged with quiet precision. The colors were muted: whites, grays, browns, and deep navy tones that seemed to have lost their brightness long ago.
The first outfit immediately caught his attention — a school uniform.
A crisp white shirt. A black tie neatly folded beneath the collar. Dark trousers that had been pressed and kept perfectly smooth. It looked surprisingly clean, far too clean for a place like this. That small detail made him pause. His fingers brushed lightly against the fabric — it was cool, smooth, almost freshly pressed.
"Strange…" he thought to himself.
"There's education in this place?"
The idea was both comforting and curious. It meant that even here, in a world that seemed stripped of luxury, there was still room for learning. For hope. Someone had cared enough to keep this uniform spotless. Perhaps it belonged to the child who once lived here — or perhaps to himself, the version of him that existed in this world.
He turned his gaze toward the other clothes.
There were three or four ordinary outfits — simple shirts, faded pants, a few worn jackets. The colors were dull and tired, like fabric that had been washed too many times. Some of the pieces had small stitched repairs at the cuffs and seams. Others bore the marks of hard use: frayed threads, a patch of discoloration where the color had long been rubbed away.
Still, there was care in how they were folded. Even among simplicity, someone had taken the time to keep things neat.
At the bottom of the wardrobe were two or three work uniforms — thicker, heavier, and darker in color. The material looked durable, meant for physical labor. There were faint stains at the edges of the sleeves and the hems, signs that they had seen real use.
Denato stared at them for a long while.
"This place… maybe the children are expected to work," he thought. "Maybe each one has a task of their own."
The realization made something stir quietly in him — not shock, but understanding. Compassion.
It was easy to see the kind of life this orphanage represented: a life where even children had to earn their keep, where learning and labor went hand in hand. It wasn't cruelty — it was survival.
And survival was something he knew well.
He thought back to his old world — the long hours in the factory abroad, the noise of machinery, the metallic scent that clung to his hands no matter how many times he washed them. He had worked hard there, too young to be burdened by that kind of life, yet somehow enduring it.
That memory lingered with a strange warmth. He found himself admiring not just the boy who lived here before him, but himself as well — the version of him that had carried on, no matter what world he was placed in.
He brushed off a thin layer of dust from one of the shirts, then quietly closed the wardrobe.
Creaaak…
The sound came again, softer this time, fading quickly into the stillness of the room.
He turned and took another slow look around. The space felt smaller now, more intimate, as if the act of exploring it had revealed its true nature. It was a humble room — plain walls, simple furniture, and a faint beam of light cutting through the dusty air. There was no luxury here, but there was a strange peace in its emptiness.
He noticed there was no sign of a bathroom. That made him think.
"Maybe the orphanage has a shared bath — separated for boys and girls," he reasoned silently.
"It would make sense in a place like this."
He tilted his head up, looking at the cracked ceiling — thin lines that spidered across the old boards like veins of age. Everything here spoke of practicality, of necessity, of a city that no longer cared for nature's touch. Tessalon — the name of this world's city — came to mind again. He imagined beyond these walls there were streets lined with metal and smoke, buildings that stretched upward but left no room for trees. It was a place of function, not beauty.
His eyes shifted to the faint reflection of himself in the dusty windowpane. It was a blur, hazy and imperfect, but enough to make out his form.
He studied himself quietly.
A boy — lean, but not frail. Stronger than he looked. About 160 to 170 centimeters tall. His hair, short and slightly tousled, carried a dark purple sheen under the sunlight. His eyes, deep and steady, seemed to carry years beyond his age. Sixteen, he estimated — only three years younger than his old self from the previous world.
"Guess that makes me the oldest one here…" he murmured under his breath, though the sound barely escaped his lips.
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth — small, fleeting, but real.
It vanished quickly as another thought crept in. He was in a world where no one truly knew him. The name "Denato" existed, yes, but it belonged to someone else — someone whose memories he only glimpsed through a notebook. What if the people here — the caretakers, the children — expected that same person? What if they noticed the difference in his eyes, in the way he spoke?
That quiet worry tightened in his chest.
He thought about what he had read — about the boy who grew up here, who had lived in this orphanage since childhood, who never wrote of sadness in his notes. That boy — the "Denato" of this world — had carried pain quietly, never letting it show.
And then he thought about himself.
The other Denato. The one from the world before. The young man who had left home to work in foreign lands, surrounded by cold steel and harsher voices, surviving through sheer endurance.
It struck him then — how similar they were. Two lives separated by worlds, yet bound by the same persistence, the same quiet strength.
He exhaled softly, feeling his heartbeat steady beneath his palm as he pressed a hand against his chest.
"No matter the world," he thought, "I'm still me."
The whisper came with a small, genuine smile. Not of arrogance, but of acceptance.
He lowered his hand, turned toward the door, and reached for the cold metal knob.
His fingers tightened around it — hesitant for just a moment.
Click.
The sound of the latch echoed faintly through the still room.
The door opened slowly, its movement pulling a ribbon of golden light from the hallway into the shadows within. Dust motes swirled in the beam, glimmering like tiny fragments of stars caught in the sun's embrace.
For the first time since waking in this place, Denato stepped forward — out of the quiet, out of the uncertainty, and into the world beyond the room.
He didn't know what waited on the other side of that door — whether familiarity or strangeness, welcome or danger — but one thing he knew for certain:
This was the beginning of his exploration.
The beginning of understanding the world that had become his new reality.
And as the door closed softly behind him, the small, silent room was once again left to the dust, the light, and the faint echo of footsteps fading down the hall.