PROLOGUE

At the edge of Styllas, just before the second sun touched the hem of the sky, two young boys hid in a crumbling corner of the old observatory station. Fire crackled in the distance, and the wind carried the scent of charcoal and seared flesh. There were no more alarms. No more sirens. Only heavy breaths and the far-off rumble from above the sky.

Artci held Ivan’s trembling body close, a tattered blanket wrapped around them both. Outside, the heavens split open with streaks of violet light that fell like congealed blood—the first trace of the Stellaros descending into the world.

“Brother…,” Ivan whispered, his voice hoarse like splintered metal on the verge of breaking, “Dad and Mom… they’re not coming back, are they?”

Artci didn’t answer. He knew if he opened his mouth, his voice would fracture, and the dam of his sorrow would burst. So he just held Ivan tighter, shielding him from the cold and the heat of the burn that still seared his own arm—an injury he sustained dragging his little brother out from the collapsing gravity chamber.

For a moment, the rumbling stopped. As if the world itself was listening. Or waiting. Then something immense detonated in the distance. A pulse of light swept over the ruins. Towers collapsed into yawning fractures between dimensions. Buildings melted silently and vanished without a sound—As though the world was being forgotten, like a frequency losing its vibration.

An anomaly field had awakened. Spacegravost. And they were sitting at its core.

Ivan peeked from under the blanket. His dark-silver eyes stared blankly at the falling light, no longer wet with tears. His lips parted slightly.

“Will the world stay like this forever, Brother?”

Artci bit down on his lower lip. He, looked upward too—through the shattered glassless window embedded in the dying wall.

“No,” he replied, his voice trembling. “One day, I’ll end it all.”

But even he wasn’t certain. His heart whispered doubt. When the catastrophe struck, all he could think of was protecting his brother. That was the only conviction strong enough to survive the trembling of all existence. Not for the world. Just for him.

As they stared into the sky tearing itself apart, a sudden echo pierced through the station’s ceiling—A wild, raw resonance. It wasn’t just sound—it was a psychic strike. Like lightning made of thought, driven into the soul. A vibration that trembled through the spine. Artci pulled Ivan closer. He stroked his shoulder gently, offering what comfort he could. But he didn’t know—That at that very moment, Ivan began to hear something that no other human could.

“Silence…, is the only voice left,” whispered the echo inside Ivan’s mind.

A whisper that would change the story of these two brothers—who loved each other with every fiber of their being.

From that day forward, two paths began to unfold. The elder brother burned with a vow to save the world. The younger froze in a quiet prayer, begging for it all to end.

And from those embers—

and the silence that devoured sound—

the world would one day fall.

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