A few days ago, I shared an isolated fragment of my story.
I didn’t expect it to spark interest, comments, votes—and especially, people asking for more.
So, as promised, here it is: the true beginning.
I hope you enjoy it.
The village of Elorien always woke with a whisper.
Neither the sun rushed between rooftops nor the river that crossed it seemed in any hurry to flow. It was as if everything there—the wind, the houses, the people—knew that living was more about rhythm than speed.
I understood that.
At seventeen, the only thing I truly knew was the rhythm of days. The smell of fresh bread before the sun rose. The dust swirling in the square. The exact gesture my tutor made when adjusting his glasses before reading me something “not suited for my age, but good to keep your brain from rusting like the rest of this town.”
And still… I always knew something didn’t quite fit.
As if part of me walked a step beyond the world.
As if something watched me—from the water’s reflection, from the flicker of flames, from the shadow of my own voice.
By the way, my name is Eirene, and for a long time, this world—my world—was as small as the smoke curling from kitchen chimneys at dawn.
My village wasn’t on any important map, though traders sometimes mentioned it as a stop along the way. The houses were low, made of aging stone, with red rooftops like dried blood. The streets, crooked and stubborn, seemed drawn by a drunk on a crumpled scroll. And yet, to me, all of it was home.
That forgotten corner belonged—like most things on this side of the continent—to the vast Empire of Threxil: a proud, aging body whose banners still flew over walls no one remembered being built. Ruled by nobles who rarely walked on non-marble ground, the Empire held to ancient laws, rigid hierarchies, and a sense of order honored more from habit than belief.
Magic wasn’t just taboo—it was a crime.
Not from superstition, but from fear.
To the Empire, arcane power represented forgotten chaos—a whisper from a time when strength answered to wills without crowns. People didn’t speak of it much. They didn’t need to.
It was enough to know:
Mages had once started a war that nearly destroyed everything.
Or so the stories said.
Now, even a spark out of place could spark suspicion.
And suspicion often meant death.
I remember that morning in particular.
The sky was clear.
I looked in the mirror before leaving, like I always did.
My hair was black, wild, and untamed like brushwood falling down my back.
Deep eyes—the kind people don’t like to meet for too long.
Pale skin, as if the village sun never touched me with the same warmth as everyone else.
—“You look like your mother,” my tutor would sometimes say when he thought I wasn’t listening.
Though I had no idea what that meant.
I didn’t know much of anything.
I barely remembered my parents.
Truth be told, I never really knew them.
Auren always told me they died when I was very young, but he never gave details.
And I guess… I learned not to ask.
I grew up with him—with his habit of talking to plants and sleeping with a book on his chest.
To me, he was the world. Everything else was just… background noise.
Somewhere in my memory, there’s a warm voice. A soft perfume I sometimes smell for no reason.
But I can’t tell if it’s real or something my mind invented to fill the void.
People say some truths are only revealed when you’re ready.
Maybe my story is one of those.
Maybe not.
What I do know is:
Even when I stare at the sky hoping to catch some echo of an answer, I’ve known no other life but this—
A girl without answers, raised by a healer who never stopped protecting her.
—“How did they die?” I asked once. I must’ve been nine, maybe ten. It just slipped out—like tossing a stone into a pond.
He didn’t answer right away.
He blew over a mix of herbs, sealed the jar, and looked at me with those tired, wise eyes—like someone who’d just walked a hundred years.
—“What matters is that you’re here, Eirene. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
I didn’t press.
Maybe because I knew he didn’t want to talk.
Or maybe… I didn’t want to hear something that wouldn’t change anything.
In time, I stopped asking questions.
I learned silence is sometimes lighter than truth.
And even though I’ve grown used to living without them, some nights I wake up with the feeling I heard a voice I don’t recognize… or dreamed a scent that doesn’t exist.
And sometimes—just sometimes—I wonder if my parents ever imagined what would become of me… if they knew the silence they left would follow me for so long.
Anyway—
I remember that morning with the stillness of memories that don’t seem important… until memory reshapes them.
The sky was clean, unhurried. Pale blue, like the day wasn’t sure if it wanted to begin.
I walked with the basket on my arm, sleep still heavy on my lashes. Mist stretched lazily over the fields. Elorien yawned in its routine.
I went to gather white hawthorn and agripalma root.
Auren said cutting them with the morning dew made them more potent for his salves—he always made up reasons to pull me out of bed early.
I took the same path as always.
The same crunch under my boots.
The same bird singing—one I still hadn’t learned the name of.
I liked that walk.
It was simple.
I picked some branches by the stream, pulled out a few stems with damp earth, and cleaned my hands a bit.
Just like every other time.
I bent down to get a deeper root, one nearly hidden under a rock.
My fingers touched it—and nothing happened.
And yet… I felt everything.
I can’t say what changed.
I don’t know when the forest stopped being the forest.
A blink, maybe.
A small shift in the world.
The light changed. The air, too.
And when I looked again—
No trees. No moss. No leaves.
No birdsong. No running water.
I was alone.
In a narrow hallway.
Its walls were black, like polished obsidian.
The floor didn’t crunch. Didn’t echo. It was smooth. Cold. Strange.
Like it wasn’t meant to be walked on by anyone.
The ceiling was so high I couldn’t see it. Or maybe it wasn’t there at all.
Everything was shadow. Long, still shadow.
Fear came slowly.
Not like a punch.
More like cold creeping up your back when you forget your coat.
It was quiet. Steady. Uninvited.
I pressed my hand to my chest.
Nothing hurt.
But my heart beat as if it did.
I stepped forward.
There was no echo.
—“What… is this?” I whispered.
Even my voice didn’t sound like mine.
Ahead, at the end of the hallway, stood a door.
Tall. Thin. Old wood.
It didn’t belong. It looked… forced into place.
A scar from another world.
I turned.
Behind me, another door. Identical. Just as still. Just as absurd.
Then I felt it.
A pull—not in sound, not in words.
Just a feeling.
A tug in my gut.
Like something on the other side of the world was yanking on a string tied to my soul.
Not violent.
Not urgent.
Just… inevitable.
I breathed slower.
The air was thick.
Like my lungs had forgotten how to move.
—“This isn’t right,” I muttered, fists clenched. “What the hell is going on…”
I wanted to go back.
There was nowhere to go.
I wanted to wake up.
But I already was.
So I walked.
Each step soft.
I reached the door.
Stared at it.
No handle.
No keyhole.
Just… there.
I extended my hand.
Hesitated.
And opened it.
A flash of white light.
No shape.
No heat.
Just a flood of world into my eyes.
Then—Nothing.
I woke lying on the grass.
The wind moved it gently.
The sky was clear. Innocent.
As if nothing had happened.
I sat up slowly.
My legs trembled.
Not from fear—but from something deeper.
As if my body remembered a fall my mind had missed.
The basket lay beside me.
Intact.
The roots still fresh.
Everything in place.
Except me.
I looked around for any trace—any sign that said: “Here, something impossible happened.”
Nothing.
But I felt it.
The memory of a light I couldn’t describe.
A hallway that couldn’t exist.
The invisible touch of a door I may have never opened… or maybe I did.
Something had shifted.
Not outside.
Inside.
I touched my chest.
My heart beat normally.
But not to the same rhythm.
I closed my eyes.
Hoped for clarity.
Hoped that if I stayed still enough, maybe an answer would rise like the echo of a forgotten voice.
But there was no voice.
No revelation.
Only that strange certainty—
Like dreaming of a face you can’t remember but still miss.
Was it real? I wondered.
But what is real, when your eyes aren’t enough?
Lyara’s voice broke the silence with the ease of someone unafraid of it.
—“Eirene! What a surprise. Done for the day already? Did you find any hellebore root? My mother’s cough is acting up again…”
Her words startled me—not violently, but like someone waking you from a dream you hadn’t realized you were in.
I blinked. And in that blink, something felt forced.
Like I had to fit into a conversation I was late for.
I forced a smile. Faint. Uneven.
Like a half-formed word left hanging in the air.
—“Yes, Lyara. I’m done. But… I’m a little tired.”
Lyara frowned slightly. That mixture of friendship and unease that comes when someone you know well starts to feel unfamiliar.
Eirene’s eyes—normally calm, deep like well water—looked different. Not sad. Not empty.
Just… distant.
Like they were looking past the dust of the road.
—“You look pale,” Lyara said, softly, almost without meaning to—yet not without care. “Are you okay?”
—“Yes.” I lowered my gaze and fiddled with the basket’s rim, trying to hold my posture steady.
“Just a bit tired, like I said. I need to head back. You know how Auren is with his mixtures... if I’m late, he’ll make me sniff each one to tell them apart.”
Lyara sighed, resigned.
She knew Eirene.
She knew her thick silences, her habit of holding more than she ever said.
She didn’t insist.
With Eirene, insistence often felt like throwing stones at a lake, hoping it would speak back.
She walked alongside her for a while, chatting about little things: the market, a cat that had gone missing, the blacksmith’s new apprentice who, according to rumors, had hands softer than strength.
Eirene listened—or tried to.
She nodded politely, but her answers were short, almost automatic.
Something in her walk, in her eyes, wasn’t all there.
Her mind was caught elsewhere.
Tangled in a feeling she couldn’t name.
Like a tune you only half-heard, yet can’t stop humming.
It wasn’t fear exactly. But it wasn’t peace either.
It was something finer. Sharper.
A strange trembling under the skin.
As if that door she opened—
in the deepest part of herself—
hadn’t quite decided whether it should’ve been crossed…
or sealed shut forever.
If you feel like this world speaks to you in some way, feel free to leave a comment, follow my profile, or simply share the post. That already helps more than you think.
Next week, I’ll be sharing the second chapter.
Would love to have you along for the journey.
— Mario Fernández
Author of “The Council of Two Worlds”