Prologue

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An imprecise sky hovered in the air as if it were nothing, staining an unrecognizable world with black. There was also a twisted universe in pain in the form of a myriad of arrows stuck in the flesh. And it was there, in the midst of a haunting silence and muted lamentation, that the spirits of ice walked the earth, claiming the price charged for the greedy touch of death. The stillness would then come to seal the gates of the Abyss and finally erase the lines in the history of that brief life. But the avaricious death was contained for a ruthless moment, a fragment of mercy, leaving a remnant of existence.

Time dragged on like sands blown away by the storm, or perhaps it ran in the hurry of a whiff; it was no longer possible to distinguish. Eyes, still half-opened, searched for one last and tenuous vein of hope, and found a silver thread that opened in a grin. The moon shone, pale, now sailing among flames, smoke and shadows, guiding him to an end that flowed into a beginning, a thin and fragile crossroads between death and life.

Battles were still fought in the depths of the heart; muffled shouts insinuated in the ears, carrying a long-lost memory. Eyes would close for that night, but they would certainly open once more for the days gone by, an unknown past that extended to the present and held a truth in itself. Suffering burned in the guts, in the minutia of being, death had taken everything away from him, except life and the depths of his own soul. There remained, then, a universe that opened in carefully turned pages, filled with sounds, noises, vibrations, lamentations and laughter. A clamor, a melody, uncertain, imprecise, vast and determined to embrace him in a world that, at the exact moment, he started to recognize again.

The moon still grinned, as if conspiring such a destiny, echoes brought by the wind roared the fate. And then a breath, eternal as long as it lasted, made him awaken once more to the world.

Not everything is confined to silence.

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