Chapter One: The Thing That Did Nothing
Alex hated silence.
Not because it was annoying, but because it always reminded him of what he had lost. The two voices that suddenly disappeared from his life, leaving him surrounded by everything… except meaning.
When his parents died, he wasn't left with grief alone. He was left with wealth that could buy the world, and freedom that was heavier than he could bear. In his early years, he lived as someone who feared nothing: new cities every month, faces he couldn't remember the names of each night, relationships that started fast and ended even faster. He wasn't looking for love or stability. He was running.
And the escape was easy when you had money.
Yet, in every fleeting relationship, in every loud laugh, in every morning waking next to someone whose name he barely knew, he felt the same emptiness… a missing thread in his life, stretching back to his parents, to secrets left untold.
They spoke of a piece.
Not as a myth, but as something real. Their conversations would stop abruptly when he entered the room, their eyes holding worries he didn't understand until it was too late.
> "If you ever find it…"
"You'll understand why we never told you."
Then they were gone.
An accident, so they said. Clean, quick, with no real answers.
And from that day, Alex changed.
---
His entry into archaeology wasn't born from passion. It was born from obsession. He funded his studies himself, ignored ridicule, and entered a world that didn't forgive the reckless… yet he was reckless by nature. Impulsive, eager, never knowing how to step back.
He wasn't searching for civilizations or academic fame. He was searching for one artifact.
Over the years, his name became known—not as a prestigious archaeologist, but as someone "willing to pay for results." And so strangers came to him.
One of them was Mark.
Not a close friend, but someone he knew through gray areas, the circles where people seek the unknown for money. One evening, Mark arrived, tired, eyes shining with greed.
He placed an old, worn map on the table.
> "I don't understand it… but you will."
"And I want my cut."
Alex didn't ask where it came from.
Questions like that no longer mattered.
---
The journey was short but grueling. A forgotten, unregistered site, barren land that gave no promise of reward. Mark grumbled, talking only about money, wasted time, and how he saw nothing worth the effort.
Alex remained silent.
He felt something familiar in the place. Not fear… but anticipation.
They spent days digging. Mark shouted in frustration, claiming "there's nothing here," but Alex dug as if he were unearthing his own memories.
On the seventh day, a faint sound reached him.
The metallic clash of his tool against something solid.
Time seemed to stop.
He knelt, brushing away the sand with care, and revealed a small black stone. No markings, no distinguishing shape, perfectly smooth.
He held it.
And waited.
Nothing.
No light.
No sensation.
No reaction.
A wave of crushing disappointment hit him, sharp and raw, as if a year of his life had been reduced to nothing in an instant.
> "This?" Mark sneered.
"This is what we came for?"
Alex said nothing.
He stared at the piece as if it were mocking him. All those empty relationships, all the money, all the searching… only to end with a silent stone.
Yet, he couldn't throw it away.
There was something in its silence, in its simplicity, in its doing nothing, that made him feel the story wasn't over.
He placed it in his bag.
> "We're done here." — he said quietly.
He left the site without looking back, leaving Mark cursing his luck behind.
---
That night, Alex sat alone in his large house. His past relationships felt distant, his laughter m
eaningless. The piece lay on the table, and he stared at it for a long while.
> "I'll give you a chance."