الفصل 1: The Beginning Of The Endبداية النهاية

"Once you walk through that door, your life will never belong to you again." Mandiba warned. The engine roared to life. Seconds later, his taillights disappeared into the rain, leaving me alone with a folded piece of paper clutched so tightly in my hand that its edges dug into my palm. I didn't unfold it. I couldn't. My gaze stayed fixed on the empty road where his car had vanished, half-expecting him to return, roll down the window, and tell me he had made a terrible mistake. He didn't. The rain answered instead. I looked down at the paper. The address. Nothing more than ink on cheap paper. Yet it suddenly felt heavier than anything I had ever carried. My fingers loosened. Then tightened again. I slipped the paper into my pocket. Pulled it back out immediately and folded it. The argument inside me refused to end. Walk away. Find another way. Go home. Forget this ever happened. Then another voice rose above the fear. Go back to what? Another day of empty promises? Another rejection? Another night pretending everything would be fine while my mother worried herself to sleep? My jaw tightened. The familiar ache of failure settled heavily in my chest. I had spent years waiting for life to change. It never did. Maybe this... Maybe this was the chance I had been praying for. My hand drifted to the paper again. Mandiba had never looked afraid before. Not once. But when he handed me that address, something in his eyes had changed. It wasn't doubt. It was regret. The memory sent a chill through me. I should have walked away. Every instinct warned me to. Instead, I unfolded the paper one last time and stared at the address until I had memorized every word. By the time I slipped it back into my pocket, I had already made the decision I would spend the rest of my existence regretting. The building stood alone at the end of a narrow road hidden behind rows of abandoned houses. Its windows were dark. Its stone walls were stained by decades of rain. Dead vines crawled across the bricks like black veins. No lights. No sign. No indication that anyone had lived there for years. I checked the address again. It matched. The wind carried the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Somewhere nearby, a raven let out a harsh cry before silence swallowed the sound. Every instinct told me to leave. I even turned around once. I had taken only three steps when my father's face appeared in my mind. Not as he had been in life. As he had looked lying inside his coffin. Helpless. Unfinished. I stopped walking. Slowly...I turned back toward the house. The old wooden door stood slightly open. As though it had been waiting for me. Before I could knock It creaked open by itself. A cold breath of air drifted from the darkness inside. Then a woman's voice floated through the hallway. "I've been expecting you, Ziko." My blood turned to ice. I had never told anyone I was coming. Every muscle in my body locked. The voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It carried the quiet certainty of someone who had been expecting me all along. I stood frozen on the threshold, staring into the darkness beyond the open door. "Come inside." The woman's voice echoed through the house. It wasn't a request. It was a command. My instincts screamed at me to run. I almost listened. Then I remembered the unpaid bills stacked on the kitchen table. My mother's forced smile as she pretended she wasn't hungry. The empty chair where my father should have been. I stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind me. I spun around. No one was there. The sound reverberated through the house before silence settled once more. A chill crawled beneath my skin. The air smelled of melted candle wax, damp wood, and something older. Something metallic that reminded me faintly of rust. The hallway stretched ahead, lit only by flickering candles mounted along cracked stone walls. Their flames danced although there wasn't any breeze. My footsteps echoed. Slow. Uneven. The deeper I walked, the quieter the outside world became. Soon, even the sound of rain had disappeared. It felt as though the house had swallowed it whole. I reached the end of the corridor and entered a circular room. Hundreds of candles burned without smoke. Ancient symbols had been carved into the stone floor. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, crowded with dusty books, glass bottles filled with dark liquids, dried herbs hanging from hooks, and objects I couldn't identify. Then I saw her. She stood beside a long wooden table with her back turned to me. She wore a black gown that brushed the floor, her silver hair cascading almost to her waist. She looked... ordinary. Far too ordinary. Slowly, she turned. Her face was lined with age, but her posture was straight. Her pale gray eyes settled on mine with unnerving calm, as though she had known me my entire life. "So," she said. "The son who carries another man's broken dreams has finally arrived." A knot formed in my throat.