As the years drift by, memories fade like smoke on a winter's breath.
The things we cherish alter with time; our desires shift as though guided by unseen tides.
People we once believed we knew become strangers, and even the places we call home change their faces.
Life moves, and we must move with it
though many truths remain hard to grasp. Change, constant and unyielding, is the one companion none can escape.
Upon a quiet afternoon, in a dim corridor of the Ashford Mental Asylum, a man clad in black sat motionless upon his wheelchair. His clothes were simple, almost like a mourner's garb. His eyes, hollow and distant, held no spark of the present.
A nurse approached, placing her hands gently upon the handles of his chair, guiding him past the other patients. They lifted their hands and waved, though he did not react
not even a flicker of emotion crossed his face.
Five years earlier, the world had been torn by the War of Thrones, when kingdoms shattered their alliances and battled fiercely for the Seat of Sovereigns.
He had been one of the many soldiers who fought in those ruinous days.
And when peace finally returned, and banners of truce were raised… the warriors who bought that peace with blood were forgotten.
He was one of them.
The nurse pushed him into his room. With effort, he rose from his chair and lay upon the simple bed. A single oil lamp lit the small space. He reached for a book tales of lands and wonders beyond the asylum's walls and began to read, though his eyes held no life.
His legs, wounded in battle, had long since failed him, leaving him bound to the chair.
The nurse watched him for a moment, sadness softening her gaze.
"Most of the soldiers who fought that war have been cast aside," she murmured. "It is as though they hold no worth anymore…"
She left the room quietly.
The next day, he sat in the recreation hall among a group of patients playing chess. He played and won each match, yet wore no expression of joy nor interest.
Those who spoke to him received no words in return only a slow, silent nod. After the war, that had become his only response.
The Ashford Asylum sat on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Solvaris, in a small, mist-covered town. Months slipped by, then years. Families came and took their loved ones away. Doctors departed one by one, and the once-busy halls grew empty.
In time, only one patient remained: him.
And only one caretaker chose to stay: a woman named Alina.
She spoke to him each day, even when he offered nothing in return. She sat by his window, shared stories, read letters aloud, and placed photographs beside him in hopes they would stir a memory.
No one ever came to claim him.
His comrades? Gone.
His friends? Faded.
His family? Silent.
Though the war had ended, he alone remained left behind in a place the world had forgotten.
At last, the day came when Alina knew she must leave Ashford as well.
Before she departed, she placed a neatly folded black suit upon his bed a long coat, a white inner shirt, and polished boots.
Beside it she left a letter, a map, and a small pouch of coins.
When he opened the letter, the words were simple yet heavy:
"Life takes much from us. We spend years fearing who will forget us, yet seldom do we look at the present and ask what life still offers.
Out there is someone who remembers you. Someone who is yours.
Go and find them."
He stared at the paper for a long time.
Then, as though awakening from a deep slumber, he rose slowly from his wheelchair, cutting away the long hair that had shadowed his face for years. He bathed, dressed carefully in the suit she left, and gazed into the cracked mirror.
A man stood before him.
A man returning to a world he had not touched for half a decade.
His name was Jones Frost, age thirty-two.
A married man who had left his young wife when duty called him to war.
The last line of the letter echoed in his mind:
"Find the one who knows your name."
And with that, he stepped beyond the doors of Ashford for the first time in five long years.