Sub-Arc I-1: *The child who was not recorded
No one spoke of me during the first seven days.
Not because I did not exist, but because no one knew how to do so.
In a world where everything began with a name, I was a flaw in language. An uncomfortable gap between words. When villagers passed by the house where I had been left, they lowered their voices without realizing it. Some crossed themselves. Others quickened their steps.
They did not say "the child."
They did not say "that thing."
They simply… avoided looking.
My mother was the only one who tried to hold on.
I saw her sitting beside me day and night, murmuring sounds that resembled unfinished names. Her mouth moved, her throat tightened, but no syllable managed to remain in the air. It was as if the world refused to hear her whenever she tried to define me.
"You are mine," she whispered. "Even if no one else says it… you are mine."
I did not understand the words, but I understood the trembling.
Something inside me responded when she was near. Not with warmth, nor hunger, nor crying.
With attention.
I listened.
The priest returned on the third day.
He carried a new parchment, thicker, sealed with symbols that did not belong to the village. Two men from the High Temple accompanied him. They did not look at me directly.
"It must be done," one of them said. "Before it gets worse."
My mother stood between them and the cradle.
"He is not sick," she said. "He breathes. He sleeps. He cries like any other child."
The priest avoided her gaze.
"He was not named."
That sentence fell heavily, like a verdict that allowed no argument.
"Then name him now," she replied. "Do it."
The men exchanged uneasy glances.
"We cannot," the priest said. "We already tried to write it. We already tried to say it. The name… does not stay."
He took out a pen.
Brought it close to the parchment.
The divine ink vanished the moment it touched the surface.
"The world does not accept him."
I felt something then.
Not fear.
Not pain.
A faint pressure behind my eyes, as if I were looking at something that did not yet have a shape.
The man from the High Temple took a step forward.
"This is unnatural. The longer he remains without a name, the more unstable his existence will become. He may attract things."
"What things?" my mother asked.
The man did not answer.
He simply closed the parchment.
"He must be delivered to the temple," he said. "There we will know what to do."
She screamed.
Not words. A raw, animal sound that split the air. For a moment, I felt something around me vibrate. The shadows in the corners stretched. The dust suspended in the air stopped falling.
The men stepped back.
The priest went pale.
"Did you feel that…?" one whispered.
"No," the other replied too quickly. "It was nothing."
But I had felt something different.
A response.
That night, I did not sleep.
Or perhaps I did sleep—and learned to do something else at the same time.
The house was silent. My mother breathed heavily, exhausted from crying. I stared at the wooden ceiling, following the cracks with an attention impossible for a newborn.
Every crack was… clear.
I could perceive the exact distance between each plank. The weight of the wood. The flow of air. Not because someone taught me, but because the world filtered nothing from me.
There was no name between my mind and reality.
And then it happened for the first time.
I wanted to move my hand.
Not the physical hand.
Something else.
The air in front of me rippled.
Not like magic—magic had structure, form, symbols—but like a momentary denial of rules. The shadow cast by the candle flickered. The sound of insects outside vanished for an eternal second.
Then everything returned to normal.
I cried.
But not from fear.
From surprise.
The next day, the village began to change.
Not obviously. Not at first.
Sundials marked slightly different hours depending on who read them. An old man swore the well had shifted a few steps to the left. A child fell into the river… and emerged upstream, unharmed and confused.
Small inconsistencies.
Nothing that could be pointed to with certainty.
Except me.
Animals avoided the house.
Hens did not lay eggs when I was nearby. Dogs grew uneasy, growling at empty spaces. Cats sat in front of my cradle and stared at me with unmoving eyes, as if facing a mirror that reflected nothing.
The priest tried to pray again.
His prayers unraveled in his mouth.
Sacred words, when approaching me, lost their strength and became sounds without intent. As if divinity itself dissolved when passing through me.
"It does not respond," he whispered. "There is no echo."
In the Heavens, far above those restless nights, Aethrion watched.
Every attempt to record an event related to me produced contradictory results. Probabilities refused to align. Causes no longer led to defined effects.
It was like watching water fall… and not get wet.
"This is no longer just an anomaly," Miryen declared. "It is an expansion."
"He is still small," Lysara replied, though her voice lacked conviction. "He does not act with intent."
"He does not need intent," Thael intervened from the shadows. "The void does not choose. It consumes."
Aethrion did not look away.
"He is not consuming," he corrected. "He is… disorganizing."
A life without a name did not obey the semantic bonds that held the universe together. Everything existed because it could be named, referred to, classified.
That child was not linked.
"What will happen when he learns to speak?" Miryen asked.
The Registry did not answer.
Below, in the mortal world, my mother made a decision.
I felt it before she spoke it.
She packed what little she had. Wrapped me carefully. Left the house before dawn, avoiding gazes, whispers, fear.
"I will not take you to the temple," she whispered. "I will not let them erase you."
We walked into the forest.
The farther we went from the village, the lighter the air felt. Leaves did not crunch beneath her feet. Insects returned. Sounds fit together better, as if the world—far from the accumulated names of men—tolerated me more easily.
Deep in the forest stood an old cabin.
Abandoned.
There, for the first time, she placed me on the ground.
"If anyone asks who you are," she said, tears on her face, "tell them… tell them what you feel."
I looked at her.
And for the first time, **something in the world answered me clearly**.
Not a word.
Not a name.
A concept.
*To exist.*
She smiled, though she did not know why.
At the very moment her lips curved, the Registry trembled.
It was not loud.
It was not violent.
But it was real.
Aethrion closed his eyes.
"It has happened," he said.
"What?" Lysara asked.
"The world has recognized him… without naming him."
Thael smiled.
"Then we are no longer observing an error."
"What are we observing?" Miryen whispered.
Aethrion opened the Registry one last time.
The empty line was still there.
But it was no longer still.
It was expanding.