Long ago, in a distant era swallowed by the years,
the world stood on the brink of destruction.
At that time, beasts emerged from the shadows —
No one knew where they came from,
nor how they came to be,
as if the earth itself had cast them forth from its depths.
They ravaged cities and devoured villages,
They were not seen as beings worthy of life,
but as annoying insects overdue for extermination.
Her eyes passed over their terrified faces without blinking,
as if screams and wails were a familiar scene,
arousing nothing but boredom in her.
...
In her view, humans were a flaw in the fabric of the world,
a pointless noise,
and an absurd existence that ought to be erased.
...
She did not rush in anger, nor kill with pleasure;
instead, she crushed them with a terrifying calm,
as if performing a simple task...
cleansing the earth of its excess.
There was no hurry in her steps,
only a silent certainty
that none of them deserved to survive.
And in an age drowned in ash,
when the last human strongholds fell and banners collapsed under the weight of ruin,
silence reigned over lands that once teemed with songs and fire.
Only fragments of people remained—
lost souls,
faces worn by loss,
and hearts heavy with sorrow,
waiting for the end as a traveler awaits the cold night in the open.
Then, in the deepest moments of despair, a call came.
It was not a sound to be heard,
but a hidden tremor that passed through the bones,
breathed from an entity with no name,
no face,
and no time.
An ancient call, as old as night itself,
mysterious as a shadow slipping between mountain cracks.
No one knew what it desired, nor where it beckoned,
but those few humans left… answered.
Not because they trusted,
but because they had nothing left to lose.
...And clinging to hopes of survival,
they walked toward it like the lost walk toward the illusion of light
in an endless desert...
And that entity,
whose origin and end were unknown,
carried within it a power beyond human comprehension—
a force not captured by any language nor fully understood.
Ancient tongues named it,
whispering rather than declaring,
the "Gateway of Life."
Not because it led to life as they knew it,
but because it stood at the boundary between
destruction and immortality.
Thanks to that indescribable power — the Gateway of Life —
those few survivors were snatched from the jaws of destruction,
and transported to a land
untouched by fire, and untrampled by ruin.
In that safe place, where screams quieted and dust settled,
the survivors gathered what remained of their will.
They stood upon the ruins of hope,
looked back at the loss they had left behind,
and silently vowed to make that desolate land their new home.
It was not merely survival, but a beginning.
They decided to found a kingdom —
not ruled by fear,
but to protect humanity from the horrors of the outside world,
and keep the memory of the fall alive in the stones' memory.
They reached out to the entity that had appeared in their moment of collapse,
that which had no name and no understanding,
and asked it for aid.
It answered...
And stones began to rise,
walls were built,
and the land spoke a new life.
And thus, the last kingdom of humanity was built,
named with a word full of mystery and awe:
The Kingdom of the Void.
A mighty kingdom, divided into several provinces,
each surrounded by towering walls,
built from stone and oaths.
Each province had a guardian,
and every guardian bore an unbreakable vow.
And the people lived in peace...
Or so they thought.
Years passed,
and memories faded into the folds of daily life.
Humans forgot the beasts that once devoured their dreams,
and they forgot the world that almost destroyed them.
Within their high walls,
they believed the past would never return.
But time forgets nothing,
and what is crushed does not die—it waits.
On a starless night,
a scream echoed through the kingdom's corners—
a thunderous cry,
like no human voice or animal call.
It was enough to shatter the silence of the night,
and instill terror in the hearts of those who thought themselves safe.
In a small village surrounded by massive walls,
an impenetrable darkness spread across the sky,
wrapped in an aura of mystery and fear.
Deep in the night, glowing red lights shimmered from behind the walls,
like the eyes of colossal beasts piercing the barrier
that the village relied on for safety.
The villagers' hearts began to race,
and they felt an inner scream warning them
that the danger they had long forgotten
had returned to threaten their lives once again.
Screams and running echoed through the streets,
as people fled in terror from those burning gazes,
forcing them to escape the face of the unknown.
Amidst the panic, someone dared to speak in a trembling voice:
the stories of monsters were no mere myths,
and what they saw was an undeniable truth.
And so... fear returned.
And the threat of the beasts returned.
But the kingdom—
built with impregnable walls—
stood firm.
The walls were tall, majestic,
impenetrable.
The beasts did not enter,
and the humans did not leave.
Thus, the kingdom—meant to be humanity's fortress—
became a stone cage,
silent, suffocating,
blurring the line between the fear outside
and the despair within.
Those inside became prisoners of their own peace,
as if protection,
when prolonged too long,
turns into a curse.
Generations passed within those walls—
generations born in shadows,
living in stone,
dying without ever seeing what lay beyond the barriers.
They forgot the sound of the wind across the fields,
forgot the shape of the sky unbroken by stone,
forgot that once, long ago, they were free.
And the worst part of forgetting...
is that it does not come all at once,
but creeps quietly.
Even the greatest truth—
written in every heart since the beginning—was lost:
Nothing lasts forever.
Neither peace...
nor fear...
nor walls.
Nothing lasts forever.