CHAPTER ONE: THE BEGINNING OF ABOUT
They said the world began with a sound — not thunder, not wind, but a whisper.
It wasn’t a word that could be heard, yet it moved through the bones of creation.
It said About.
No one knew what it meant. Some called it the name of a forgotten god. Others said it was a message from the realm that watched before time began. But in every tongue, in every age, About was the echo that never faded.
And from that whisper came him — the Wanderer.
He was not born from woman or from fire, but from silence. A man of quiet eyes, carrying questions that weighed heavier than swords. He walked through ruins and kingdoms alike, not to conquer, but to see. Wherever he passed, truth unfolded — and fear followed close behind.
The people called him Eroan, meaning the one who knows too much. He never spoke unless the wind demanded it. Yet when he did, even kings felt small. For Eroan could see beyond faces. He could read the air between words, the lies behind laughter, the grief beneath smiles.
But Eroan was cursed — not by gods, but by awareness.
The more he saw, the less he belonged.
He wandered through cities of gold where men pretended to be kind, through villages where friends turned their backs when he spoke truth. They said, “You think too deeply.” They said, “You read meanings that are not there.”
Yet Eroan knew — he saw their masks, and behind every mask, another mask.
There was a night he slept under the moon’s pale eye, dreaming of an endless battlefield. Two armies stood — one made of light, the other of shadow. But when the light struck, the shadow laughed, for both armies were reflections of each other. He woke with tears in his eyes and whispered, “So this is the war of men — the battle between what they see and what they hide.”
He rose and kept walking. His feet bled, but the whisper of About followed him — soft, like breath over water. He didn’t yet understand it, but he knew it was a calling. Something vast, something unfinished.
In the distance, an empire trembled. Kings were dying without wounds. Scholars went mad searching for the meaning of dreams. Prophets lost their tongues.
And deep within the mountains, an old voice spoke to the winds:
> “The one who carries About walks again. The world will remember what it forgot.
