The beginning

Stella sat across from Elias, arms sore from the morning drills, but curiosity burning in her eyes.

Elias gently laid the book between them. "This isn't just history," she said. "This is... before everything. Before the Whitening. Before the Seven."

Stella leaned in. "What do you mean 'before everything'? Like... how long ago?"

"A thousand years," Elias said. "Maybe more. The world was completely different. Not like this."

She opened the book. The first page was filled with neat, looping handwriting. At the top, a single name, Evenglion.

"Who's that?" Stella asked.

"The last recorder," Elias said softly. "This diary is the only thing we have from the world before. Our world now? It's a shadow of what once was. Covered up, rewritten. Twisted."

Stella flipped to a random page and began reading aloud.

"Today I saw the crowd in the city's roads again. The military still refuses to return democracy or release the country's leader, but we—the citizens—won't give in. I've seen events like this before. All part of their scheme. They even cut our connection to the satellites."

"What's a satellite?" Stella asked, frowning.

Elias chuckled. "Metal birds in space. They used them to talk to each other, watch the Earth. Machines that could fly, send messages across oceans, light up entire cities. They even reached the moon."

Stella blinked. "That sounds like magic."

"To them, it was just normal," Elias said, flipping another page. "But the Whitening erased it all. Like someone turned the world off and rewrote it from scratch. The Seven rose right after."

Stella tapped the page, thoughtful. "Evenglion was there?"

"Or close to it. He wasn't a warrior—just a normal person who saw too much. Literature from the old world is either lost to time or... destroyed by the Seven."

Stella looked up at her. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because Ray told me to. And because you're not just anyone, Stella. You need to understand the world you're standing in—not the version the Seven painted for us."

She pointed to another passage.

"The one who knows the true pain shall be the only one to know the true peace. I remember watching an anime. I never imagined it would shape my entire life."

"Anime?" Stella tilted her head.

"There's not much about it in the book." Elias scratched her head. "It's mentioned a few times, but Ray said it was a kind of art. Moving pictures, stories with emotion and meaning. I can't really imagine what it looked like."

She stood and offered her a hand. "Alright. It's getting dark. Same time tomorrow, yeah? Don't be late."

Stella nodded, something warm and steady settling in her chest.