“I’ll be going now,” I smiled, waving my sister off.

  I crouched down, preparing to shuffle through the small hole in the way.

  “Sister, wait,” my sister called out, interrupting me.

  Her voice was uncharacteristically stern.

  That fact made me pause.

  I turned around, blinking at her questioningly.

  She shot me a small glare.

  Her sharp look made me flinch.

  It wasn’t long ago when she would only look up at me with her cute clueless eyes, blinking nervously with a small tear gathering in her ducts as she followed me around like a little duckling.

  Now, look at her. It hadn’t even been three whole months since we first met and she was already developing an attitude towards her older brother.

  …Older sister?

  The whole ‘gender’ thing was a bit complicated. I didn’t care much before, and to be honest, I still didn’t care that much about it, I still mainly focused only on making sure we could get through winter, which by now, had already crept up to our doorstep.

  But unlike before, where the only things that mattered to me were fending off starvation and getting the hell out of the city, making it a very easy thing to ignore, there were now two separate voices inside of me, fighting to pull me in one direction or another.

  On one hand, there was that annoying little boy who sat outside that hospital room, who ran shouting at everyone who would listen – and honestly, even those who didn’t want to listen – that he was going to be an older brother.

  The memory of the person I used to be a long, long time ago; he was the reason I had subconsciously clung so tightly onto the little girl long before she had ever called me ‘Sister’ in the first place. It was for the sake of his wish, my wish, to be called ‘older brother’ that I had sworn to take care of her in the first place.

  But on the other hand, there was the voice of the present; the voice that came from my little sister, who stood right in front of me. And her words were absolute. They were the singular truth that I had sworn myself to.

  And her words called me ‘Sister’, so I was her older sister.

  Speaking of which.

  “You haven’t eaten yet.”

  My sister’s cold voice roused me from my thoughts.

  “I-... er…”

  I had the decency to be embarrassed, a flush coming to my cheeks as I shyly averted her gaze.

  “I-It’s fine, I’m not hungry, I-I’ll eat when I get bac-”

  My hasty excuse was interrupted by a loud grumble that originated from my stomach.

  I felt the heat creeping onto my cheeks intensify.

  I spluttered, looking away even further.

  “Sister.”

  Her cold glare dug into me ruthlessly.

  I was not afraid to say that a five year old’s glare made me flinch right then.

  She sighed tiredly and furrowed her brow. She then marched up to me and grabbed my wrist.

  “W-wait, it’s fine. I’m already about to leave, it would waste time if I went back inside to eat, it would be better if I just le-”

  I was cut off by the act of her dragging my wrist along with her as she stomped backwards.

  I was more than strong enough to stand my ground if I wanted to, but I just did not have the heart to resist anything my sister said or did.

  She pushed open the fully repaired door to the house and shoved me forwards, forcing me to sit by the table.

  “R-really, I’m fine. Y-you don’t need to keep worrying about me, i-it was just a one-time thi-”

  “Sister.”

  She cut me off coldly, grabbing a piece of beef jerky from the table.

  “Eat.”

  She shoved it into my mouth.

  Saliva gathered in my mouth as I reluctantly chewed the meat with tears in my eyes, helping me to break down the dry, salty goodness.

  I felt the restless presence inside of my stomach grow sleepy and tired, giving me a moment of peace.

  “Remember what we talked about, Sister.”

  I flinched again, and nodded fearfully.

  “Y-yes…”

  I sheepishly reached out for another stick of jerky on the table, nibbling on it like a small ferret or squirrel.

  “W-we’re splitting the food in half from now on…”

  Things had changed since the day I passed out on the floor, barely escaping death from starvation.

  It was obvious even to a clueless child what had led to my atrocious state of body and mind.

  Looking back, my sister had probably known all along that I was pushing myself too far. It was probably why she kept trying to push her food onto me, coming up with shoddy lies about how she was full or how the food wasn’t good.

  I just ignored it while I was in the midst of my madness.

  I still wanted to ignore it, to be honest.

  Even after she forcefully fed me to bring me back to sanity, I still didn’t feel comfortable with the fact that I was evenly splitting food with her now.

  I finished nibbling on the stick of jerky in my hands.

  I gave my sister a wobbly smile, and lifted myself up off the chair.

  “There, I’ve eaten now, I’m all good. I’ll be-”

  She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back down into the seat.

  “No,” she sternly denied my words with her cute voice, much to my chagrin.

  I bowed my head, more of the untouched meat and bread I had pilfered from the past week shoved into my arms.

  A small part of me wanted to resist, panicked at the idea I was taking food that was supposed to be hers.

  What if it was too much?

  What if, because I ate all of this, there wouldn’t be enough for her tomorrow?

  Then she would go hungry.

  And then if I kept taking food that was meant to be her, she would only get hungrier and hungrier.

  And then because it was winter, it would become harder and harder for us to find food.

  And then both of us would fall into starvation.

  All because I was being greedy and surrendered to the frenzied demon that lurked inside my stomach.

  The thought of my sister having to go through some nights with only a half-filled stomach just because I was being greedy and needed to take her food for myself was still absolutely terrifying to me.

  I shuffled around in the seat uncomfortably, squirming with the food in my arms, but nevertheless, I did proceed to eat it, having run out of excuses to keep the food for later.

  I still didn’t like it. I really did want to resist and give all of the food to her, but I just couldn’t.

  Not because of the voice of starvation that haunted me previously, no, that thing had long since been sent to sleep.

  It was just because it was my sister’s care. I couldn’t deny the worry she was showing for me. It would be wrong and selfish of me as her older sister to slap away the fact that she was trying her best to look out for me.

  She wanted me to eat. So no matter how much I disliked that fact, I would go along with it, because what kind of older sibling would I be if I denied the fact she loved me?

  Almost a dozen minutes passed as my sister watched me eat in silence, only moving whenever I opened my mouth to make some lazy excuse to stop eating, sharply interjecting by just shoving another piece of bread into my arms.

  It was funny how it all turned around in the span of around a month. Just a few weeks ago, she was the one trying to hand off her food to me with bad excuses. Now I was doing the same and failing just as badly.

  After what felt like an hour, the endless tide of food finally stopped, my sister satisfied with the amount that I had eaten.

  I sighed warily, desperately fighting back the satisfaction and warmth that was brimming inside of me. I couldn’t let that feeling overtake me, I had to remember who was responsible for who here. I was the one caring for her, not the other way around.

  “Okay, I’ve eaten, I’m full now, I’ll be going off then.”

  She appraised me with a stony look, holding her glare for a few seconds.

  I gave her a warm smile.

  “Really, I mean it… thank you for the food.”

  Her frosty stare only managed to last for a few more seconds, melting away into a worried look as she bit her lip nervously.

  She seemed to transform in almost an instant, going from stubborn and cold to her familiar perpetually teary, wobbly, nervous self.

  “T-take care, Sister, please…”

  She sniffled.

  My eyes softened.

  This was why I could never deny her when she tried to give me food.

  “I-I’m sorry, I know you don’t like it but… I-I just… I don’t want to lose you…”

  Behind that stern front was just a little girl worried about the only person she had left by her side.

  Her quivering hands went back to the table, grabbing a few biscuits and holding them out to me.

  “H-here, take them. F-for when you’re outsi-”

  She was cut off as I enveloped her in a hug.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and held my hands tightly across her back.

  I let my head dip into her shoulder, and I whispered into her ear.

  “I love you too, Sister.”

  I took the biscuits and quickly spun around and left.

  If I stayed for any longer, the situation just would have kept on going and escalated. She might have started to cry and then all of a sudden I would find myself unable to leave the house, not wanting to leave her side as she was being emotional.

  There was important business I wanted to deal with today, and I didn’t have that much time left, since the sun had already started to set.

  The stores would close soon. I needed to get there before everything closed for the night, and preferably get back home before the gangsters and criminals started to prowl the streets shortly after.

  After I crawled through the small hole in the wall and came out on the other side of the alley, I covered up the hole as usual and then proceeded to brush off my clothes.

  Loose chunks of dirt fell off the simple dress I was wearing, something I had managed to salvage from one of the last few unexplored houses on the abandoned street.

  Wearing clothes that belonged to a little girl still made me a bit squeamish, but I did need to look at least a little presentable and normal for where I was going. I was very lucky that the place we found and lived in was near the very edges of the slum. If I had dressed like this inside the central rings, I-...

  Well, I still had bad memories of when I went there previously when I was clean.

  I sighed, briskly strolling through the streets as I weaved my way through the tide of strangers walking back from their day of work.

  I was lucky I didn’t stand out that much around these parts. In my previous life, it would have been extremely strange to see a little girl by herself walking around in the poor parts of town. Here though, it was commonplace to find street rats and orphans scattered around the place.

  Still, though, it made me uncomfortable, as it always had, to be trapped in the routine of the city. I didn’t have to deal with it for long, luckily, as I quickly made my way into a nearby alley to carve a quicker way through to my destination.

  Before long, I had arrived in what was quickly becoming a familiar sight.

  A line of workers and housewives surrounded communal ovens to my left, each of them pulling out a large pan with freshly baked bread on top.

  To my right, a rowdy group of gangsters sat around the patio tables of the barbecue restaurant, a flame sizzling in the background as they roared and cheered, cups and mugs clanging together as they drank themselves into a stupor and generally made a huge mess of themselves.

  I was back here again. Not for food; I still hadn’t stolen from the baker or the restaurant since the previous incident put them on high alert.

  No, I was here for the other thing I had seen on the street.

  I kept my head down, stiffly shuffling past the crowds on either side of me.

  Eventually, I was faced with my destination.

  A tiny, homely storefront, with a small glass window on its front, providing a meagre look at its wares.

  Quaint shelves filled to the brim with books stood next to each other in narrow rows. Behind the near opaque glass, at the far end of the store, I could barely make out the silhouette of the owner at the counter, sitting quietly behind his desk as he sifted through a newspaper with a mug of coffee by his side.

  I approached the door and tried my hand at opening it.

  It did not budge.

  I sighed, disappointed, but not surprised.

  It was rarely unlocked, even when the store was open for business.

  That was why I was doing this, after all, and not just resorting to stealing like I usually did.

  It wasn’t like I could just pick up a rock, break the window and then take as many books as I could, not unless I wanted to alert everyone within a mile that I was breaking and entering with the obvious sound of breaking glass.

  I knocked on the door, tapping my foot on the ground as I waited impatiently for a response.

  After my third attempt at knocking, it seemed the owner finally heard me and opened the door.

  A lanky and scruffy middle-aged man sighed as he pulled the door open.

  “What is it, now? I told you, I’ve already paid this month’s rent. And I don’t have more, no one bu-”

  He blinked, finding that he was talking to no one.

  He adjusted his glasses around his lazy, ticked-off eyes, before looking down.

  “Oh, it’s just you, little miss,” he frowned, then sighed.

  I just nodded quietly to greet him.

  He clicked his tongue before stepping back.

  “Well, if it’s just you, I guess I could make some time.”

  He held the door open for me as he pushed himself back against the wall, giving me just enough space to slide past him into the store.

  He wordlessly closed the door behind us.

  We separated almost immediately; he made his way back to the counter at the back of the store, groaning as he sat back down to work out the soreness in his back, while I pivoted straight towards the shelves.

  “I’ll be at the desk as usual. Tell me if you need anything, miss.”

  I paid him no heed, focusing on the names printed onto the spines of the books I was looking at.

  I was at an unfamiliar shelf, lined with more expensive books than I had previously bought. I struck gold recently – well, figuratively, anyways – having uncovered a mediocre painting beneath the floorboards of one of the abandoned houses, which I was fortunately able to sell for a decent amount of coins.

  It was a bit annoying trying to find what I was looking for; historical books often were titled and labelled in really obtuse ways, as they existed long before any kind of tradition or convention could be defined and named for specific genres and formats.

  My eyes eventually came across something attractive.

  Aschenhardt Chronicle

  That seemed promising.

  I didn’t recall anything called ‘Aschenhardt’ from across history but it seemed like it could have been the name of some big, important place in the past, and while the world ‘Chronicle’ didn’t really have any meaning by itself here, it did give off a vaguely pretentious, intellectual vibe like I was looking for.

  I got up on the balls of my feet and leaned up to try and get the book off the shelf.

  I failed, coming more than a few inches short.

  I frowned.

  I stretched myself harder, making a few audible groans in the process.

  The store owner looked up from his newspaper, his eye drawn by my voice.

  I still failed to reach the book.

  I sighed.

  I relaxed myself, before bending my knees, coiling myself up and jumping as high as I could.

  My fingers lightly brushed along the bottom of the book.

  I clicked my tongue. Just a little higher.

  I tried again, putting even more strength into my hop this time.

  My fingers slipped off the spine off the hefty, thick book.

  I yelped as I fell backwards, unable to catch myself on my feet as I came back towards the earth.

  “Woah there, miss. Settle down.”

  Luckily, the store owner had gotten up from the counter, concerned by the noises I was making, and had reached me in time to catch me before I fell.

  “Keep your feet on the floor, would you? The shelves are a pain to keep organised. Wouldn’t want you toppling them over.”

  He sighed, looking at where he saw me reaching for.

  “Now then, what were you looking for… was this it?”

  He effortlessly plucked the book I had struggled so greatly to reach off the shelf, holding it in his hands.

  He blinked, inspecting the book in his hands with a strange look on his face.

  He shot me a brief look of concern.

  “You know what this is, right, miss?”

  I shrugged.

  I didn’t know exactly, but I could make a fairly confident guess.

  “An encyclopedia.”

  I kept my words short, I didn’t need to speak to strangers all that urgently.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Right…” the shopkeeper nodded hesitantly.

  He frowned, opening the book in his hands and flipping through it lazily.

  He didn’t like what he saw inside for some reason, but nonetheless, he snapped the book shut and put it in my hands.

  “That book’s a little complicated. You sure you can read that, miss? Are you running an errand for your parents, or something?”

  I shot him a small glare.

  “It’s for my sister. I’m teaching her to read.”

  He flinched, looking away apologetically.

  “Ah, shit… uh, sorry, miss…” he scratched the back of his head awkwardly, his voice losing his usual lazy yet sharp tone, “thought you were a kid from uptown or something, and were just trying to sneak something away from your mother and father or just buying stuff to study.”

  He shrugged.

  “No one around these parts of town knows how to read. Thought you came from the other side of the bridge, that hair colour’s pretty rare among commoners.”

  I frowned, idly fingering a lock of the aforementioned golden hair.

  “I-...” The shopkeeper sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in a small bit of frustration.

  “Sorry, miss. You want to teach your sister how to read?”

  I nodded.

  “And your parents. They’re not around?”

  “...”

  I nodded again, slower this time, more nervous than before.

  He groaned, walking back towards to the counter.

  “Ugh, hold on a sec, miss. Wait here, I’ll go get something from the back.”

  He disappeared behind counter, opening a door to the back of the store.

  I was left alone to my thoughts for a very awkward, silent minute.

  I idly flipped through the large book in my hands, glancing at a few of its pages to confirm its contents.

  …

  It was still extremely strange that everything was written in perfect ‘modern English’.

  I hadn’t thought about it before when I was just talking to other people, but seeing it solidified in writing was just… beyond strange.

  People living five hundred years ago, or even just two hundred years ago if I went by the progress of culture and industrialisation, should have been speaking and writing in a way that should have almost seemed like an entirely foreign language to me.

  Yet, for some reason, everything was communicated like it was the 21st Century.

  What the hell was going on?

  Was I even thrown backwards in time?

  There was absolutely no way I was still in the 21st Century, though. Given the size of the city I was trapped in, that would have to mean I was surrounded by a bunch of crazy roleplayers who liked to enslave children and kick homeless people, and were also perfectly fine with just letting them starve to death.

  “Here.”

  I was brought out of my thoughts by the book in my hands suddenly being snatched away from me, before it was quickly replaced by another one.

  I blinked.

  The store owner had given me a different book, this one much older. It was bound in fraying, ancient leather, its pages heavily yellowed and brown, simultaneously brittle, frail and soft to the touch. I felt like if I wasn’t careful with it, it might have just crumbled away in my hands.

  “It’s a bunch of old fairy tales and stories from an ancient kingdom, or something,” he tossed the encyclopedia he had taken from me back onto the shelf, “much easier to read for a kid, probably more exciting too.”

  My eyes widened at his words.

  Remains of an ancient civilization?

  “I-I can’t take this,” I shook my head nervously, “I-it’s too valuable for someo-”

  He shoved the ancient book further into my hands, sending me stumbling back.

  “Just take it,” he cut me off with an annoyed tone of voice, before walking back to the counter, beckoning me to follow him.

  I kept my head down as I followed him, suddenly feeling jittery and hyper-aware.

  “Look, it wasn’t gonna sell anyways, okay?” he sighed again as he plopped back into his chair.

  “Yeah, sure, it has value. Definitely the most expensive thing in this shoddy place, but it’s not unique or anything. More than a few copies of that thing lying around the world.”

  He shrugged again, taking a lazy sip of his coffee.

  “Don’t got no sentimental value or nothing either. You can take it. Wasn’t gonna come off the shelf naturally. No one around these parts knows how to read, and if they did, the parents definitely wouldn’t be coming in here looking for something like this. Just get it off my hands so I can forget about it. If you really have to, just consider it a small bit of passing kindness from this old man. I ain’t heartless, even if I really ought to be if I want to survive running a bookstore surrounded by a bunch of illiterates.”

  “I-I-...” I stuttered, clutching the precious book closer to my chest.

  “Look, just hand over the coins, alright?” The shopkeeper snapped at me.

  He roughly appraised my body, before catching glimpse of a small satchel around my waist.

  He leaned forwards over the counter and snatched it before I could react, shaking it a few times to confirm there were coins inside.

  “Go on, shoo,” he scowled, going back to flicking through his newspaper, “don’t got all day here. Need to close up shop properly.”

  I made my way out of the store quietly, burying the book deep inside my arms, close to my chest.

  My hands shivered as I walked through the darkening streets.

  It was cold, really cold.

  Hopefully, my little sister would be comfortable tonight.

  If nothing else, it would be a good night to snuggle up close to each other for warmth.

  My little sister…

  I smiled, a hearty warmth from my soul pushing back against the winter chill that crept onto my fingertips.

  She was so excited when we spent time reading together, even if the first couple of books I brought back were nothing at all.

  She was so curious, so eager to learn, so inquisitive and hungry to explore.

  Even if she understood none of the words in them, and struggled to even recognise individual letters, she would stay up all night with me, constantly blabbering away every single second, asking nonstop questions about every tiny little detail until the sleepiness overtook her.

  I wonder what it was she dreamed of. Both in the sense of what she saw in her sleep, and what it was she desired from the future.

  What was it out there that gave her such a strong desire to learn? Did she see herself as a scholar? Did she want to grow up to learn mathematics or science? Maybe she wanted to be a historian, or a doctor.

  I couldn’t wait to see what kind of person she would grow up to become.

  Whoever that person was, surely she would shine brighter than the pitiful person I was before I found her.

  I had to make sure that light in her eyes never went out, not like mine did.

  Before long, I had arrived home.

  My sister was already lugging around a bucket filled with water, setting it down next to another on the patch of dirt that could have been called our ‘garden’.

  “Ah, sister,” her eyes brightened as she saw me.

  She waved towards me excitedly.

  “I’ve already got the water ready! You should clean yourself quickly!”

  I hefted the heavy book in my arms underneath one of my shoulders and reached out with my free hand, ruffling her head.

  “Good job. You can go ahead, I have to put away our surprise for reading time tonight first.”

  “Reading!?” She smiled excitedly, almost jumping up and down on the spot. “I can’t wait!”

  She actually couldn’t, it seemed, since she immediately spun around and took her clothes off, jumping feet first into the modest bucket of water.

  I just sighed and shook my head, amused.

  I quickly went inside and left the book in the bedroom on the bedside desk before joining her.

  I was still a bit traumatised by the idea of cleaning myself, but it was relatively safe now, since we weren’t in the inner rings of the slums, and unlike before, where I had to sleep on the streets, there was a bed I slept in now, a bed I had to keep clean.

  I finished ‘bathing’ – if it could be called that, it was really more like ladling water onto myself one handful at a time – quickly, taking exactly as long as I needed to clean myself, and not a second more.

  My sister, despite having started earlier than me, took far longer, wasting her time by splashing around and playing in the water like any other child.

  It was nice, seeing her enjoy herself.

  It was a luxury we didn’t have even just two weeks ago, where every second of the day was spent scrambling to survive.

  I was glad that I could do good by her, and keep all of her needs fulfilled well enough to give her enough space to simply enjoy life, even if we were still stuck in poverty.

  Maybe after the place was fully fixed up and a few more winters passed, I could get myself a job around here and get us out of the slums.

  Maybe there was a school around here? I could maybe send her off to one of those.

  I sighed as I sat down in bed, bringing the sheets over my lap as I prepared for our nightly reading.

  I decided to flip through the book before my sister joined me, hoping to maybe pick out a few suitable stories to read to her.

  I didn’t get far at all before I was stopped by a strange sight.

  And by ‘didn’t get far’, I meant I stopped on literally the first page.

  A disconcerting foreword greeted me.

  [My name is Anterius Bellium, the 17th Vox Populi, the Public Speaker of the Kingdom of Calybcor, known to us in the present as the Halcyon Land.

  I write this book in dedication to an old friend of mine, a man known simply by the title of the ‘Child of Sol’, a title I hope whoever reads this finds familiar as one of they sing of at parades and festivals.

  He was a very dear friend of mine, braver, stronger, and kinder than any other I knew. He was the light of our future, our only hope against the dark tide that threatened to burn down our lands and ravage all of what we came to discover was the ‘Human Realm’.

  He was taken from us too young, sacrificing himself to eternal slumber to seal away that dreadful darkness and prepare for its inevitable return, along with our one and only Eternal Voice.

  The times have changed since those dreadful days, much of it for the better. We longer need to fear that infernal armies march at our doorstep every night, burning our harvests to the ground and spreading plague wherever they go. No longer do we sleep with our eyes open, ever vigilant against the next Hellgate to spawn from the maws of the underworld, swallowing entire kingdoms and summoning another Legion.

  But sometimes, I cannot help but feel as if things have gotten… sadder. Our people are no longer unified by the threat of the Legions. No longer do we greet our neighbours with care and love.

  Without the Voice to guide them, the Church is quick to fall to corruption, hoarding their treasures and wealth to enrich themselves, and call all those who speak against them heretics.

  My successors, too, find themselves at odds, all too eager to bear arms against one another in the courtroom, drawing districts and dividing themselves into warring political factions, each desperate to stake their claim over the Kingdom’s people.

  And the grandson of the King I swore to serve, I speak hesitantly and treacherously, but I fear deep in his heart lurks a darkness and selfishness that will lead to treason.

  The world in the wake of the Seven Legions' attack is a different one. I can only pray that they do not forget what came before them; the horrors and tragedies we suffered, the battles we fought to ensure a better tomorrow, the heroes who bore the burden of all our people’s sorrows and hopes. I do not know if my people or their history will last forever.

  It is for that reason I write this book, a collection of art, tales and poetry about my good friend, the ‘Child of Sol’, in hopes that his name will be remembered in history as one of the greatest forces of good to ever live. I pray he is not forgotten by time, and that the people who come after me will not forget his sacrifice, will not forget about the horror of the Seven Legions, and will prepare themselves for their inevitable return.

  For when they do, I do not know if he will awake to save us. To save you.

  Do not let the Seven Legions become a name of the past. Do not let them fall from history and become legend. Legend is what they became to us, and we paid the price for it.

  Engrave these stories deep into your mind, and carry on his legacy.]

  A thought entered my mind, one that created a sinking pit in my heart.

  I flipped through the pages, desperate to find some evidence that ran contrary to that thought.

  The book was not just a collection of fairy tales centring around this mythical ‘Child of Sol’; it was a memoir of this man, Anterius Bellium, detailing not only his life, but the world he knew. There were vivid pictures drawn of the great sights of this ‘Calybcor Kingdom’, of their rituals and of their festivals, filled with long passages describing their religious rites and process of worship.

  But I-...

  I didn’t recognise any of it.

  I didn’t recognise this civilization. None of the names or places, none of the architecture or geography, none of the religion or the mythology described in the foreword…

  None of it rang a single bell.

  One by one, the possibilities collapsed, until I was left with a singular possibility.

  It was a painful truth.

  …

  This was why everything seemed so strange in this place.

  Why none of the architecture matched the advancement of technology or the migration of culinary cultures. Why the way people spoke and wrote was so strange for a medieval time period.

  None of the things described in the book in front of me matched anything I knew of history and archaeology on Earth.

  None of things around me created a place that was possible to exist at any point in history on Earth.

  But, that-...

  That only left the possibility I was no longer on Earth.

  I was on some other planet, some other world or dimension, with its own history and development, its own culture and technologies.

  I could not ever return home.

  That place did not exist anymore.

  I was alone.

  Very, very alone.

  A knock at the door shook me.

  I gulped, fighting back the freezing winter air, empowered by my realisation of desolation.

  No, not yet…

  I wasn’t alone yet.

  I still had her.

  My little sister.

  I put on my best smile, and called out to her.

  “Come in.”

  Seekers of Lost Sin [Closed Beta] - Prologue & Tutorial (Gameplay/Cutscenes, no Commentary)

  s1nful

  459K subscribers

  17,493 views 25th Feb 20XX

  A distraction from my usual review and discussion videos on the game. Noticed there wasn’t a lot of actual raw unedited gameplay footage out there of the game, so a lot of what content creators might be talking about will go over a lot of viewers’ heads. Just happened to have recorded all my gameplay in case I needed it for B-roll, so I figured it would be helpful if I just uploaded it as a series of silent gameplay so you guys can be on the same wavelength as the rest of us.

  PLAY

  A wondrous night sky, almost seeming painted in its beauty, came into view.

  Devoid of light pollution, devoid of clouding fumes and gases, clouds of starlight spiralled across the darkness, birthing myriad colours into the dark world.

  Abyssal blue melted into deep purples and washed against the pitch black of night, where wisps of light swirled and shone, painting themselves vividly across the inky canvas of the night sky.

  A brush stroke of heavenly light descended from above, trailing down from the skies above, descending further and further until it touched the earth, falling beneath the horizon.

  And there, at the horizon, on a cold winter’s night, there was a city.

  In one portion of the city, at a great stone fortress keeping watch over the city, there were torches lit, the stationed guards slipping as they fell asleep standing up.

  Nearby, knights in brilliant armour continued to train well into the night, the sound of their clanging swords echoing across the castle.

  A wizard yawned sleepily, shutting his book as he glared outside his window at the noisy sparring.

  And all the way on the other, far end of the city, there was a house.

  It was atrocious, seeming half-destroyed. It looked like it would fall over if a gust of wind blew in the wrong direction, kept together only by shoddy, amateurish woodwork, various planks of mismatching wood of different sizes and colours nailed into the holes haphazardly.

  “Sister, sister! It’s reading time!”

  The voice of an excited child called from within.

  In the bedroom of the house, a little girl ran towards a bed. She was skinny and pale, her skin oddly taking on a naturally almost-grey tone. Messy lengths of desaturated sandy blonde hair bobbed up and down as she jumped forward onto the bed, crawling beneath the covers.

  “What are we reading today!?”

  She blinked up at the other girl sitting underneath the covers with large, wide eyes that were a bright shade of yellow.

  The other, slightly larger girl smiled down at her, looking at her warmly with soft eyes painted with mesmerising lavender irises, containing within them a light that seemed to fracture prismatically, vivid shades of crystalline azures and purples streaking and swirling throughout that lavender.

  She leaned against the smaller girl, her golden hair sprawling against her younger sister’s shoulder.

  She pulled open the book in her hands.

  “It’s a… fairy tale, I guess you could call it.”

  “A fairy tale? What’s that?”

  “Well… they’re… magical tales brought by the fairies, about old kingdoms, and knights and princesses. You know… heroes, dragons, mysterious creatures, other worlds and magic.”

  The older sister flipped over the worn and weathered page.

  On the paper between them, a grand battle was depicted.

  A small contingent of silhouetted silver knights valiantly held their ground, standing tall above the swarm of vicious, clawed creatures at their feet. Fire raged in the background as arrows flew across the sky and lightning bolts struck the floor.

  “Magic? Is magic real!?” the younger sister asked cluelessly.

  The older sister giggled, and flipped the page.

  “Sure it is,” she comforted the child.

  On the next page was a drawing of a beautiful woman in white and red ceremonial robes, dancing as she spun a decorated sword around her, summoning a spell that cast the fury of the sun over the demons before her.

  “She’s pretty…” The younger sister whispered in amazement, “I want to cast magic like her!”

  The older sister just laughed in amusement.

  “I think that would make you a heretic. Or a witch.”

  There was a small caption beneath the drawing, labelling the woman as ‘The Eternal Voice’, no doubt a figure of great religious importance, probably deity-like in status.

  “Then, I’ll be a witch!”

  “Maybe once you’re a bit older,” the older sister smiled wryly, ruffling the other girl’s hair, “and maybe once you’ve gone through school.”

  “I can’t wait to go to school…” the little girl mumbled, a look of concentration forming on her face.

  “Well first, you have to learn how to read,” the older sister smiled, shaking the book in her hands.

  “Let’s start!”

  The older sister just smiled at her sibling’s words, and flipped many pages in rapid succession.

  “There was, once, a legend. The people once whispered of a land made from gold.”

  “Made of gold, what does that mean?”

  She landed on an image of a brilliant golden landscape, light unnaturally twisting the landscape, rising from the ground rather than shining from the sky.

  “They weren’t being literal.”

  “Literal?”

  “It means real. As in, they just meant the land looked like it was golden, not actually made of metal.”

  The older sister sighed, continuing on with her story.

  “After many treacherous journeys, a group of nomads found the fabled land, and entranced by its beauty, they made it their home. Those nomads became prosperous, nourished by their bountiful land, which was blessed by the golden goddess of the Sun, Sol. And it was there in that land that the kingdom of Calybcor was born.”

  The next page showcased the same land, but at a much further point in time, towns, walls and castles dotted all around its beautiful plains and mountains.

  “But it would not last forever. There are always those who lurk in the darkness, hungry to devour the light. There were those in the shadows who would not rest until every last spark was devoured from the world.”

  The next page, again, showcased the land of Calybcor. Nothing had changed much, except one of the large cities had disappeared, replaced by a gaping, teethed maw that originated from the ground, swallowing everything from underneath.

  “One day, a terrifying mouth known as the Hellgate opened, and from it spawned an endless tide of demons.”

  There was a drawing of a city in flames, people running for their lives as everything they knew crumbled around them, disappearing into ash and dust. Behind the flames, tall, monstrous silhouettes laughed, towering over the helpless citizens.

  “They look scary… how did they beat them?”

  “From the flames, as the city disappeared into the abyss, a woman jumped out, her radiant sword drawn.”

  The woman dressed in flowing red and white robes appeared again once the page was flipped, brandishing her holy blade and banishing the creatures back into the abyss.

  “She called herself a descendant of the goddess Sol, to whom they owed their kingdom’s prosperity. The goddess then spoke through her voice and moved through her body, and in a single swing of her blade, closed the Hellgate, saving the people of Calybcor.”

  “Is that it?” The little girl blinked, “is that the entire story?”

  She pouted.

  The older sister giggled again.

  “Of course not.”

  She flipped the page.

  There was a grand ceremony, the red and white woman at its centre.

  Before her, two figures knelt.

  One was adorned in royal clothes and jewels, a shimmering crown placed upon his head. Behind him, a massive cluster of knights knelt, following his footsteps.

  The second was dressed much more simply, but no less neatly, an elegant coat pressing flat against his back, and behind him, all the common folk of the land knelt with him.

  “The Speaker and the King wished to thank her, to regale her with riches and gift upon her a noble title. But the woman nobly declined, and instead told them if they wished to thank her, then all they had to do was listen to her words, and she gave them a revelation from Sol.”

  The woman was then depicted giving an emphatic speech to all the kingdom’s people, an image of the terror she had seen in her prophetic visions painted in the background.

  “Their enemy had not yet fell, the Hellgate had yet to truly close. One day, it would return, and the demons would once again come to steal their light. Their fight was far from over.”

  Next, the woman could be seen standing before twelve separate groups of knights.

  “Following her words, the Speaker and the King established a large force of soldiers, known as the Knights Templar, split into twelve Orders.”

  And on the next page, those twelve Orders could be seen battling valiantly against the demons.

  “And the woman’s words came true. Another Hellgate opened, but this time, under her guidance and command, the people of Calybcor emerged victorious.”

  The woman was then seen kneeling before a statue inside of a temple, holding her hands to her face in prayer, but she was not alone. Behind her, a thousand people in priestly robes prayed with her.

  “She was enshrined as their leader, and became known as the Eternal Voice. And for the next five hundred years, she guided them through their battles against their enemies.”

  “Enemies? That’s… plural, right? But wasn’t there just one enemy, the demons?”

  “Not quite… the people of Calybcor weren’t so lucky.”

  The page flipped.

  “The attacks, as it turned out, were not isolated to the Halcyon Land. They had started to appear all across the world. And it was not the same army from Hell every time, no, they found something much more terrifying. Across the hundreds of years they did battle, they had come to recognise seven.”

  Seven shadowy figures were scattered around a dual-page spread.

  “There was the First Legion, commanded by The Promised.

  There was the Second Legion, commanded by The Hateful.

  There was the Third Legion, commanded by The Still.

  There was the Fourth Legion, commanded by The Empty.

  There was the Fifth Legion, commanded by The Faceless.

  There was the Sixth Legion, commanded by The Infinite.

  And finally, there was the Seventh Legion, commanded by The Chained.”

  “How did they win? There were so many of them…”

  The older sister sighed regretfully.

  “They didn’t, not then. They were hard-fought battles, not all of them victorious. And even the scant precious few which were did not come without cost. Many torturous centuries passed, kingdoms rose and fell, and the Twelve Orders continued to battle, slowly being pushed back every time, barely managing to scrape survival from the jaws of destruction.”

  The next page showed something… different.

  A singular white silhouette amongst a sea of black shadows.

  “But one day, something changed. Sol descended through the Voice, and spoke of a child, ‘Find my child,’ she said, ‘the Boy in White. Find him, and I will promise you victory.’ And after many years, decades passing between them, filled with many false candidates and liars selfishly seeking glory, they found him.”

  “Who was he? Was he a prince? A knight?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Huh? What do you mean? Do you mean he wasn’t real?”

  “No, I meant he was a ‘nobody’. He was nobody special. He was just like anyone else. They couldn’t find him because they kept searching for someone special. But he wasn’t some knight, or a prince, or a wizard, or some kind of scholarly genius or strong, wild boy. He was just a servant of Sol, living his life in the temples, humble and grateful. He was an orphan.”

  “An orphan… like us?”

  “…Like us, yes.”

  “Do you think there might be a Boy in White, still? Do you think he might still be around today? Maybe he’s just waiting in another orphanage, like the one I came from? Maybe he’s out there, just waiting for us to find him… maybe he could save us and give us warm food and a good place to sleep.”

  “...”

  “A-are you the Boy in White, S-Sister?”

  The older girl just laughed, playfully tapping her sibling on the head.

  “Of course not, silly. I’m your sister, I can’t be a boy.”

  The little girl blushed, waving her arms wildly.

  “W-well, what happened to him!? What happened to the Boy in White!? Why isn’t he around today? I want to know what happened to him!”

  “That’s…” The older sister smiled awkwardly, “that’s at the end of the story, dear. It’s still a long way away.”

  “Well, I’m sleepy! And I want to know now!” The girl pouted, crossing her arms.

  The older sister sighed, and flipped to the end of the book, going along with her sister’s whims.

  “Well, after many hard-fought, legendary battles, the Boy in White and the Voice… they went to sleep. The Boy in White suffered a great injury in his final battle, saving the Voice’s life in a grand showdown with the commander of the Fifth Legion, the demon known as ‘The Faceless’.”

  She hurried through the rest of the story, flipping to the very last page.

  There were two coffins. The silhouette of the Boy in White slept next to the Eternal Voice.

  “His sacrifice was not without reward, however. It was the Faceless’s machinations that had laid the seeds that allowed them to spawn the Hellgates through which they tore into our world, and with their defeat, and one final ritual from the Voice which drained the rest of her power, the Seven Legions were finally sealed back into the Hell from whence they originally came.

  Her centuries-long battle finally over, and her powers drained, the Voice spent the last of her energy sending both herself and the boy into a deep slumber, from which his injuries would slowly heal, and one day, when the Seven Legions broke from their seal, she and the boy would wake, returning amongst us to fight once more.”

  “The Boy in White…” the girl yawned sleepily, “I hope I get to meet him one day… what… what was his… name?”

  “Well…”

  The older sister frowned.

  She paused, flipping back through the book.

  “Strange,” she mumbled to herself, “it doesn’t say.”

  She sighed, flipping faster and faster.

  “Hold on for a second, let me find it.”

  She scanned the pages, hoping to find any hint of the boy’s identity.

  What was the Boy in White’s name?

  (Insert player name here)

  [You have entered Albus. Is that correct?]

  [YES] [NO]

  Ah, there it was.

  “Albus,” I smiled, turning towards my sister.

  “...”

  She gave no response, having already dozed off.

  I giggled.

  Really, that was just like her. Falling asleep right after asking a question.

  At least she listened well this time, only interrupting a few times.

  She seemed to be entranced by the story of this mythological land and its two heroes.

  I carefully set the book aside on the desk next to the bed and tucked the both of us in.

  I ruffled her hair and kissed her forehead.

  “Sweet dreams.”

  This was the happiest I had ever seen my sister.

  Hopefully, these days would last forever.

  Estelle obviously doesn’t know at this point that magic exists in this world. She’s just saying it because that’s what you tell children. She just also happens to not know that it actually is real.

  And no, next chapter will not involve Seeker of Lost Sins [Closed Beta] - Prologue and Tutorial (2). There’s a reason that ridiculous part of the title had to be cut lmfao. We won’t be coming back to that part for a while.