Chapter 4:The Echo Of Foot Steps.

Chapter .4:

The Echo of Footsteps

Errin's dreams had begun to change. At first, they were filled with images of his past—cities humming with life, the scent of ink on parchment, the distant echo of voices calling his name. But slowly, they faded, replaced by something else.

He dreamed of walking through the valley, yet it was different—wider, endless, the sky unfamiliar. He walked until his feet no longer touched the earth, until he drifted like mist through a land that was both real and imagined. In these dreams, the valley whispered to him, though he never understood its words.

One morning, he awoke with the sensation of those whispers still clinging to his skin. He rose before dawn, stepping outside to find the world cloaked in silver mist. The village was silent, but he felt something stirring—a presence just beyond his sight.

He walked.

The path took him deeper into the valley, past the fields and the river, into the dense woodland where the air was thick with the scent of damp earth. Birds called to one another in hushed tones, as if aware that something unseen was listening.

At the heart of the forest, he found a clearing. A lone tree stood there, its bark pale as bone, its leaves shimmering with an otherworldly light. It was unlike anything he had seen before.

As he stepped closer, he felt it—a pull, as if something within him was unraveling, drawn toward the tree's silent presence.

"You hear it now, don't you?"

Errin turned sharply. The old storyteller stood at the edge of the clearing, her face unreadable.

He opened his mouth, but no words came.

She smiled—a knowing, quiet smile. "The valley does not forget, Errin. It remembers all who walk its paths."

He looked back at the tree, at the strange glow that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. A deep unease settled in him.

"What am I remembering?" he asked.

The old woman stepped forward, placing a hand on the tree's bark. "Not everything that is forgotten is lost."

Errin stared at her, then at the tree, at the valley that now felt less like a sanctuary and more like something waiting.

He had come here to leave something behind. But now, for the first time, he wondered—had he ever truly left at all?