The Day the World Began to Fall Silent
At first, no one realized that something had changed.
No meteor fell from the sky. No plague swept through the cities.
That day looked like any other.
People went to work. Children walked to school. Cities remained alive as before.
But some began to see something strange.
Figures without clear form. Sometimes like a person standing too long at a street corner. Sometimes like a shadow that did not follow the direction of light.
Some thought it was merely an illusion. Some thought they were simply tired.
But within weeks, something began to change.
Those who looked at the figures too long began to lose something that could not be explained.
Not health. Not memory.
Hope.
They stopped planning for the future. Some stopped working. Some stopped speaking.
Cities that were once full of sound slowly grew silent.
People called these creatures the Lament.
No one knew where they came from.
Only one thing was known.
In places where humans lost their reason to live… more of them appeared.
And in one city slowly losing its hope, something else also began to awaken.
A small light.