After Giafakro heard the sound coming from deep within the cave, he froze for a moment, as if time itself had stopped around him. Slowly, he began to move forward into the darkness, staring into every corner, trying to find the source of that strange sound.
But he found nothing.
As time passed, the sound slowly faded until it disappeared completely, as if it had never existed.
Yet the mystery did not end there.
The sounds kept changing whenever he heard them.
Sometimes it was the sad crying of children, echoing from the depths of the cave.
At other times, the sound turned into innocent childish laughter, bouncing off the cold stone walls.
He could not tell whether he was imagining it… or if something truly lived in that place.
Giafakro spent several days inside the cave. He drank from its water and ate the slimy algae that grew near the small underground pool. He hated its disgusting taste, but hunger was stronger than his disgust.
Every time he left the cave, he placed stones and marks along the path so he would not lose the location of the water again.
The harsh desert surrounded him from every direction.
Occasionally, he found small reptiles hiding among the rocks, and whenever he managed to catch one, he felt genuine joy—because it meant a real meal instead of those miserable algae.
Giafakro often sat near the entrance of the cave, staring at the endless desert stretching before him.
Despite everything that had happened, he refused to believe that he had simply lost his way.
He was a man who had spent his life traveling and trading across deserts, mountains, and distant lands.
He knew the desert well—better than most people knew their own homes.
That was why he was certain that something had changed.
Something strange was responsible for making him lose his path.
So he began observing everything carefully:
the ground beneath his feet, the sky above his head, the rising and setting of the sun, the moment when the stars appeared, and even the movement of the clouds.
Searching and discovering had always been part of his nature.
One day, while wandering among the surrounding mountains, he noticed something strange.
The rocks looked unusually similar…
as if the mountains had been formed from the same stone repeated over and over again.
There were no symbols.
No marks that indicated anything.
Yet a quiet feeling inside him told him that there was a hidden secret here.
Still, Giafakro remained convinced that he had not simply made a mistake.
After many months of studying the terrain and observing the area, he began to notice something unusual.
The desert around him seemed to change depending on the time of day, even though the mountains themselves never moved.
At sunrise, the mountains appeared normal, facing toward the north.
But as the sun climbed toward the center of the sky, a strange mirage began to form… making the mountains appear as if they were slowly shifting.
By sunset, the mirage seemed to bend toward the south.
Then, when the first star appeared in the sky, everything suddenly returned to normal—as if the desert had never changed at all.
After long investigation, Giafakro finally discovered the reason.
There were strange materials hidden within certain rocks, forming four points arranged in the shape of a large square.
Inside that square, something similar to magic was occurring.
A mirage powerful enough to distort directions and deceive any traveler.
When Giafakro realized this, he felt a deep sense of relief.
He had not lost his way because of inexperience… but because of a mysterious force manipulating the land itself.
Yet his curiosity would not allow him to stop there.
He began examining the four rocks more closely and discovered that the minerals inside them were not known in this world.
Shock after shock struck him.
Finally, Giafakro decided to draw a line between each pair of opposite rocks until the lines intersected at a single point.
Then he slowly raised his head and looked toward that point.
The center of the square.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Until he finally reached the point where the lines met.
Suddenly…
He felt the ground beneath his feet tremble slightly.
And at that exact moment…
The mysterious sound he had heard in the cave returned.
But this time…
It was not coming from the cave.
It was coming from directly beneath his feet.