'Welcome, HeavenBreaker!'
The words echoed in Le Wei's ears again, deep and heavy, as though the very air had spoken them. He jerked upright in bed, breath catching in his throat. His skin was damp with sweat, heart pounding like a war drum.
"Who said that?" he muttered, eyes scanning the dim, smoky corners of the hut. No reply came. Only the crackle of the dying fire in the brazier.
The door creaked open and in waddled Old Ren, carrying a wooden bowl that looked like it had been carved with a spoon and bad intentions.
"Ah, you're finally awake," Ren grunted. "The woman next door brought this. Told me to make sure you drink it."
He held up the bowl with a flourish. The contents were green, gloopy, and faintly steaming. It looked like someone had pureed a toad and forgotten to apologize.
Le Wei stared at it. "What is it?"
"Herbal concoction," Ren said. "Supposed to help with shock. Or nightmares. Or indigestion. She was a little vague."
"You drink it first. If you survive, I will."
"That's not how medicine works, boy."
"That's exactly how poison works."
Old Ren rolled his eyes and set the bowl on the table. "Suit yourself. Die dramatically, see if I care."
Le Wei leaned back, rubbing his temples. "Where's the scroll?"
Ren paused. "What scroll?"
"The scroll! The one that fell from the sky this afternoon. The one I picked up. Don't play dumb."
"Oh, good," Ren said dryly. "We're back to celestial literature. I was worried you might start making sense."
Le Wei sat up straighter. "Ren, I'm serious. The scroll. It was real. I touched it. Then everything changed. I saw... things."
"You saw your brain melting. That happens when you stare at the sun or lick strange rocks."
"No! I saw visions. A throne of ash. Beasts. Voices. One called me the Crimson Heir. And just now... HeavenBreaker."
Ren gave him a long, deadpan look. "And I'm the Tooth Fairy. Should I flap my wings and leave silver under your pillow?"
Le Wei groaned. "You have the bedside manner of a wounded goat."
"I raised you. You're lucky you're not dead from sarcasm poisoning."
Le Wei sighed and tried again. "Ren... I'm not making this up. Something happened. Something big. And just before I blacked out, I said something strange, didn't I?"
Ren frowned. "Yeah. You said we were trapped here."
Le Wei blinked. "Did I?"
"You said it like a man remembering a secret the sky tried to erase. Then you collapsed."
Le Wei shivered. "Maybe it wasn't just a vision. Maybe it was a memory. Or a past life."
Ren snorted. "Great. Now you're like those nutcases in the Synagogue."
The Synagogue?
The Synagogue. A self-declared council of truth-seekers, historians, and mystics.
Everyone on the island had lost their past, but not their knowledge. People remembered how to plant, to heal, to build. So they built lives.
But the Synagogue? They built theories. Mad theories, according to the people of the island.
They believed this island, wasn't the beginning, but the end. A cage for the broken and forgotten. A place where memories were stolen on purpose.
They believed the wall that encircled the island wasn't just impassable..it was intentional. A divine or cosmic barrier meant to keep them in... or something else out.
Once, they even tried to dig through it. Pickaxes. Fire. Explosives made from fermented fish oil and desperation.
Three days later, they gave up.
The wall didn't have a scratch.
That was the only belief people agreed with: the wall could not be broken. Everything else? Madness.
The Synagogue carried around a massive old tome they claimed predated the island. A book of riddles, songs, prophecies, and half-scribbled maps.
They called it.. The Book of Answers.
Ren snorted just saying the name. "Book of answers....More like the book of headaches. Last I checked, it suggested the moon was an egg and we all hatched from it."
"That sounds oddly poetic."
"It also said pineapples can control dreams."
Le Wei blinked. "...Maybe not that page."
Ren leaned against the wall. "They believe some of us still carry fragments of our old selves. Echoes. They think if you dig deep enough, you can remember who you were before the Silence."
"The Silence," Le Wei echoed. That was what they called it. The event that wiped their pasts clean.
"According to the Synagogue," Ren went on, "we weren't just some unlucky soul dumped on a prison island. We were people important. Dangerous. Cursed, maybe."
Le Wei sat quietly, thinking.
It wasn't just visions. The beasts. The voices. The feeling of remembering a war he'd never fought. Of commanding forces he didn't understand.
And the word that still rang in his bones like a bell.
'HeavenBreaker.'
'I need to meet them,' Le Wei declared mentally.
People might call them mad, but they hold a book that might answer all of Le Wei's questions.
"I'm going to meet them first thing tomorrow" he declared.
Ren looked at him like he'd grown a third eye. "Have you been licking moss again?"
"No. I need that book. I need to know if what I saw means something."
Ren sighed and scratched his scruffy chin.
"Ok you're free to go"
"Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet. They'll probably make you do some kind of initiation. Last time a new guy showed up, they made him wear a chicken on his head and chant about cosmic yolks."
"You're joking."
"I wish. I really do."
Le Wei stood, wobbled a bit, then steadied himself. His chest still ached, and the memory of the beasts haunted the edges of his vision. But he felt... clearer now.
Whatever was happening to him, the scroll had triggered something.
And the answers, insane or not, were out there. In the hands of madmen. In the pages of a dusty book.
He turned to Ren, grinning. "If I die of too much madness, avenge me."
Ren snorted. "If you die, I'm keeping your footwears."
"They're too small for you."
"Then I'll throw them at someone annoying. Like the baker."
First thing tomorrow, he was going on a visit to the Island's madmen. Maybe...just maybe, that book could answer all his questions.