IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS MEMORY.
THEN CAME OBLIVION, A GUEST LIGHT OF FOOT.
WE CARRIED HIM UPON OUR SHOULDERS,
NEVER NOTICING HIM GROW HEAVIER WITH EVERY STEP,
UNTIL WE BECAME THE GUESTS...
AND OBLIVION BECAME THE HOST.
— EXCERPT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF COMMANDER TAREQ BIN NIZAR FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE WAR OF THE CENTURIES
(ASSASSINATED ONE WEEK AFTER INKING THESE LINES)
The Kingdom of the Rising Sun – Dawn of the Final Day
The dining hall in the Viceroy's wing was a brutally honest reflection of the Kingdom's history: hollow opulence, where walls boasted of gold-plated victories built on the bones of the forgotten. At the long mahogany table, the House of Mazen gathered for the last time as a family, though none of them knew it yet.
"The new canal project will conscript five thousand men," said Ghaleb, the eldest son, slicing his meat with strict military precision. At twenty-five, he viewed the world through a grid of ranks and orders. "It will bleed the poverty out of the eastern districts."
Salma, the mother, did not lift her gaze from her plate. Her voice was quiet, yet it carried the frost of the Forgotten Valleys from which she hailed. "And will you offer them clean water this time? Or will they drink from the same gutters where the rats go to die?"
A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the table. Mazen, the father and the King's Viceroy, took a long, desperate gulp of water to wash down the tension. "The King has pledged higher standards."
Salma offered a ghost of a smile. "And Kings never break their oaths, do they?"
Ghaleb set his knife down with a sharp clack. "Mother, progress demands time. You cannot forge the future in a single day."
"And death takes the poor now."
The voice came from the far end of the table. A whisper, calm yet sharp as a razor. All heads turned toward Khalid.
Khalid bin Mazen was nineteen, but his brown eyes bore the weight of an ancient soul. The Sight—his ability to see the Threads—was a strange inheritance from his maternal grandmother. He didn't fully comprehend it, but he had known the laws of the weave since childhood: Golden Threads for love and loyalty, Black for malice and tyranny, and Violet... for the unknown.
The Sight exacted a toll; the harder he focused, the clearer the Threads became, and the more they drained his spirit. And now, as they dined, he witnessed a grotesque tableau: a thick Black Thread, viscous as tar, oozing from his father's chest and snaking through the walls toward the Royal Palace. Another thread, new and dark violet, was forming beneath his own feet, pulsing slowly, stretching toward the unknown North.
"Hassan hangs tomorrow," Khalid said, his gaze fixed on Ghaleb.
Mazen sighed, exasperated. "He committed a crime against the Crown."
"A crime?" Khalid laughed bitterly. "For writing a word?"
"It was no ordinary word," Mazen snapped. "He dared to paint the 'Sigil of the Fallen' on the palace ramparts. To call for the regime's fall is to invite chaos. The law is absolute."
"Does ink demand blood?" Khalid asked, his eyes shimmering with an eerie light. "The only absolute here is the injustice."
Under the table, Salma reached out and squeezed her son's hand. For a fleeting moment, the Golden Thread binding them flared—warm, tragic, and undeniable. She knew what burdened her son. She always knew.
Past midnight, Khalid's door creaked open. Salma slipped in, clutching an ancient book bound in cracked black leather. It smelled of arrested time.
"From my father's archives in the Valleys," she whispered, as if the shadows were listening. "This is no history book... it is a Chronicle of Memory. It records what the Kingdoms tried to scrub away."
Khalid opened it. The first page bore a single sentence in a trembling hand: "FEAR THE BURIED MEMORY, FOR IT DOES NOT ROT; IT WAITS."
Beneath it was a faded sketch of a faceless shadow.
"What is this?"
Salma sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes distant. "During my time at the Academy, I uncovered a horror. The War of the Centuries... it didn't end the way the official scrolls say. There is a truth that was buried with the dead."
She took a breath. "This book speaks of 'The Consequence.' When we erase our sins instead of atoning for them... something accumulates in the dark."
"The Violet Thread you see..." Tears welled in her eyes. "I read of it in the 'Forbidden Prophecies.' The text reads: 'One shall come who sees the Weave, bearing a thread the color of dusk. Two paths lie before him: to remember... or to forget.'"
She gripped his hand. "My son... this book brings danger. But ignorance... ignorance brings catastrophe."
At first light, Ghaleb stood at Khalid's door in full regalia, his sword gleaming in the cold morning. His face held a strange softness—not anger, but a profound, weary sorrow.
"I won't watch him die," Khalid said, back turned.
"I know," Ghaleb replied, his voice rough. "But I must. Not because I condone it... but because the man who would take my place is a monster."
Khalid paused. He saw the Silver Thread connecting him to his brother trembling, a taut wire on the verge of snapping. But he saw something else: a faint Golden Web linking Ghaleb to every soldier under his command. He carried them. And they believed in him.
"How can you shield a throne that kills men for graffiti?"
Ghaleb stepped in and shut the door. "Do you know the tale of the 'Sword of Oblivion'? The man who vanished two centuries ago after nearly conquering the world?"
"A myth."
"No myth." Ghaleb stepped closer, lowering his voice. "I found the records. He was real. And he was like you... an idealist."
"History remembers he nearly ruled the world. But it forgot why he stopped. Why he vanished." Ghaleb produced a scrap of paper. "I found one note: 'I have seen the Truth. It is unbearable. I shall forget... and the world shall be made to forget with me.'"
"He didn't lose, Khalid. He chose to disappear."
Ghaleb looked at his sword. "I do not wish for you to vanish... nor to become a memory lost."
He pressed a torn piece of his old uniform into Khalid's hand. "Take this. A reminder that some wars are fought in the dark, and some in the light. You chose the light... and I respect that."
Between dawn and the execution, a strange mood gripped the Kingdom.
Khalid stepped onto the balcony. The city was waking up, but something was off. Shopkeepers were shuttering their stalls. Schoolboys huddled in corners, whispering. Even the guards on the wall wouldn't look at the square.
The Kingdom held its breath. Everyone knew a wrong was being committed. Everyone pretended they didn't.
He couldn't look away.
In the square, Hassan was bound to the post. He didn't look afraid. He looked at his four daughters with a serene, terrifying calm. Behind him, the red circle with the broken sword—the symbol of defiance—still burned through the whitewash on the palace wall.
Khalid saw the Weave clearly now: Black Threads chaining the judge to the King. Grey Threads of fear stitching the crowd together. And one fine, vibrating Golden Thread linking Hassan to his weeping daughters.
Then, a shift. Five thin Golden Threads shot out from Hassan's chest, darting toward the far corners of the world. As if his death was not an end, but a signal.
Suddenly, a searing pain lashed Khalid's wrist. The Violet Thread coiled around his arm like a bracelet of ice and fire, yanking him North.
Silence.
The axe fell.
A scream pierced the air.
The Golden Thread between father and daughters snapped.
And it didn't just break... it shattered into a million golden shards, exploding outward like a shockwave.
The escape was swift. The black book, the scrap of cloth, a knife, and coins. He left three notes.
To his Father: "I do not run from you, but from the silence you taught me. I go to find a voice."
To Ghaleb: "You once told me, 'Real things are seen from the corner of the eye.' I am watching from the corner now. And I see you weeping as you lead. That is enough."
To his Mother: "For the Memory you guard. I will return when I am strong enough to carry it."
He vaulted from the window.
At the rusted back gate, old Salem stood waiting. Seventy years of life were etched into his face, his white mustache twitching.
"Salem... open the gate."
Salem didn't move. He produced a corroded key. "This key... has turned for four men before you. They all said: 'I will save the Kingdom.' They all died."
He looked at Khalid with ancient, tired eyes. "My son was the fifth. Yasser. He wrote 'Freedom' on a school wall. They killed him in a cell and called it suicide. And I... I stayed silent."
The lock clicked. "I opened this gate for my son once. Now I open it for you. The only difference is... this time, I speak."
Khalid stepped out.
"Salem! Who goes there?" The guards were coming.
Salem grabbed Khalid's arm. "Wait." He shoved a crumpled note into his hand. "If you reach the Northern Forest, find Nora. Give her this."
"Who is Nora?"
"Yasser's daughter. My blood. She... she knows about the Threads."
Footsteps thundered closer.
"Run!" Salem shoved him into the night.
As Khalid ran, he heard the gate slam shut. He heard Salem's voice, loud and clear: "Just a stray dog, my lords! I chased it off!"
Then, the sound of a strike. And then, silence.
Hours later, Khalid collapsed by a stream in the deep North. The night was total, the stars shimmering above like the tears of grieving angels.
He looked back. The palace was suffocating under a net of black webs. He looked at his wrist. The Violet Thread was glowing now, a beacon leading to the "Dead Lands."
He stooped to drink. The water was a mirror.
And in the reflection, the water rippled.
Five faces appeared. Scattered across the world.
A girl with a bow in a forest.
A man surrounded by machines.
An old woman in a library.
A pirate on the high seas.
A monk on a peak.
All staring at him.
A cold whisper slithered into his mind: "Gather them... before the end."
Then another whisper, faint and desperate: "Do not be... do not be..."
Khalid recoiled. A second Violet Thread, ancient and thick, rose from the stream depths, winding around his arm.
A vision assaulted him: Burning books. Names struck from history. A voice sobbing in the dark, forgetting why it weeps.
And a deep voice, heavy with regret: "THIS TIME... BE DIFFERENT."
Khalid scrambled back.
Two forces. Two calls. One pulling him North, one warning him against it.
He drew his knife. He cut his finger, letting a single drop of blood fall to the earth.
"I swear..." His voice shook, then hardened. "I will remember. Whatever the truth. Whatever the cost."
The Violet Thread drank the blood. And then... it split.
One dark strand pointing North. One faint silver strand pointing West.
Two threads. Two secrets.
At that exact moment:
Miles away, an old man lifted his head. His hand trembled. His mind was a blank slate.
He knew only that something had started again.
But he could not recall why.
Khalid bin Mazen walked North. But his eyes were fixed on the silver strand leading West.
Leaving behind the prince he was.
Walking toward two buried truths.
And a game, older than time, began anew.
[End of Chapter One]