Prologue

The Broken Kingdom

The sounds of The World embrace me. As I sit upon the very rock I once called home, I feel the joy and the sorrow of a broken paradise. The beach just in front of me seems all but tormented. The soft dark sand feels coarse as the winds whisk away the grain. The waves cascade upon battered shores and the shimmering black plateau. The plateau corrodes, and so does the place I called my home. Oh dear Animiah, her cries pierce my ears and scorch my soul. My home, The World I created, the people I watch over, know her cry. Hope fades away with the tide, and the Light flows away with it like driftwood on the open seas. The Darkness wants to come back, this is what I have always known, but the Light wants to blind us. We hold on to the edge of time, and still The World is content with life. We Denizens, Gods of the heavens above, know the truth. The Humans will bring the downfall of this World. The Word will slowly suffocate by the hands of treason, hate, and bloodshed. Yet still, the spirit of a young warrior gives us Denizens something we have never felt in thousands of years. Something I've thought was simply a forgotten feeling. Hope. Legends are spoken of, since the dawn of time, about brave men standing up to the advisories of Light, and casting the shadows back to the hell they spawned from, but this time, I believe a legend shall be shaped by the decision a boy and his best friend will make, a decision that will affect us all. Oh my blessed Animiah, I will see your beauty again one day. Your towers will stand tall once more, and the sun will shine upon you. This I promise, for there is good in this world…I promise you.