The Quiet That Weighs
The gods are old.
Old enough to be forgotten,
old enough to let rooms keep sounds unheard,
and shadows that never leave.
Raven sat on the floor, back against the cold wall, knees bent, eyes fixed on a point without a name.
The air was heavy, filled with what had not been said, what had not been heard, what could not be understood.
The room was not silent. It was not empty.
It was filled with absence,
with an indescribable feeling,
and with a presence that could not be seen.
There was no real fear,
nor desire to flee,
for everything here was old enough to endure.
---
The Present Examined
The years passed very slowly,
like drops of wax falling from a very long candle.
Raven did not count them.
He no longer cared about numbers or dates.
He knew one thing:
he was here, and this moment was enough,
even if he did not understand why he existed in it.
Emma sat near him, closer than ever.
Not at the door, as she usually did,
nor far away, as he was used to seeing her.
She was present.
Her presence alone rearranged the weight of the world inside him.
Raven did not move his body.
He did not respond.
But something inside him began to move,
faintly, slowly,
as if receiving the signals of existence for the first time.
---
The Silence That Accompanies Them
The silence was not merely the absence of sound,
nor the emptiness of the space.
It was full silence,
filled with breathing, light, air, and the void itself.
For the first time, Raven realized:
silence could be warm,
it could be protection,
not just a void for fear to fill.
Emma did not speak.
She did not ask him to be better,
did not fear him,
did not try to interpret him.
Her presence alone was enough.
---
The Body and Awareness
Raven was not weak,
but his body was not entirely his own.
His limbs sometimes moved slightly behind his decisions,
as if they could not wait,
as if borrowed, not chosen.
He would stare at his hands for hours sometimes,
making sure they were still there,
making sure he still existed,
and that reality had not abandoned him yet.
Every movement, every limb, every breath
reaffirmed his existence,
even if he was not fully aware of it.
---
The Fragmented Memory
His memory had not disappeared, but it was incomplete.
Pieces of images,
sounds without faces,
maternal feelings without a name,
pleasure without reason.
When he thought of it, he did not feel nostalgia.
He felt a cold weight at the back of his head,
as if the past was watching him,
waiting for a decision he was not ready to make.
Sometimes the weight vanished suddenly,
only to return,
like a hidden tether connecting him to the world,
even in the silence of the room.
---
The Old Gods
The gods are old.
Old enough to forget humans,
leave them without answers,
allow rooms and shadows to hold sounds unheard.
Raven did not know if they existed,
but something inside him
always sensed them.
No anger.
No mercy.
No care.
Just ancient presence,
a silent shadow watching,
recording each moment,
each sway of shadows, each breath, each shard of light.
---
Emma: The Constant
Emma was not just a girl,
nor merely Priestess's ward.
She was the constant, the inner reference.
When she was present,
Raven stopped resisting his body,
stopped monitoring every movement, every thought, every feeling.
Her presence alone was enough to let him breathe without pressure,
to let him feel that the world was not all burden,
and that his existence mattered, even if only temporarily.
---
The Inner Darkness
The darkness was not a power,
nor a friend,
nor an enemy.
It was a feeling, an inner sense of alignment or rupture.
When he tensed, it grew heavier around him.
When he relaxed, it receded.
It left no trace on the external world.
Raven did not call it power.
He did not call it a friend.
It was the thing that did not leave,
something ancient,
like a thin thread connecting him to the world,
and to the remaining sanctity he had yet to understand.
---
The Silent Question
One night, between incomplete dreams and unclear wakefulness, a question arose:
"If I disappeared… would anything change?"
The question did not come from despair.
It was not a desire for death.
It was silent, neutral,
as if the world itself was testing him,
to see if his existence left a mark.
He imagined the room without him.
No difference.
And that scared him.
---
The Inner Resistance
The resistance was not against the world,
nor against Emma,
but against the inner void.
He did not want to be important.
He only wanted to be noticed.
Even if only by himself.
And in that moment, something small happened, unrecorded:
He decided—without words—to stay.
Not for Emma,
nor for the world,
but because the void did not deserve him yet.
---
The Small Details
Raven noticed the smallest things:
the movement of the curtains in a light breeze,
the reflection of light on the gray wall,
the sound of Emma's breath beside him,
the warmth from the sun entering through a small window.
Everything became important,
even without clear meaning.
Existence itself became the purpose.
---
The Present as a Starting Point
The present gave him no answers.
It asked nothing of him.
But it showed him one thing:
the past was not over,
the present was only a test,
and the future would not begin until he knew how to live with himself.
He had to learn how to inhabit his body,
observe his silence,
embrace the darkness that always accompanied him,
and start the journey, slowly, step by step,
before the paths opened before him.
---
End of Chapter
The gods are old,
their presence or absence no longer mattered.
What mattered was that…
he was here,
with Emma,
in that room,
where small, simple moments
were real power,
even if unnoticed.
The years would continue,
and he would reach fifteen and stop there.
But before that…
he had to learn to live,
to stop fearing himself,
and to learn to hear the silence of the room,
before life opened its first paths to him.