Sunlight Filtering Through the Trees

Prologue

A victim of talent

In a world of perpetual snow, there was only frost that devoured everything. The mountains stretched endlessly, covered with infinite layers of ancient ice. Night cast its heavy cloak over the mountain slopes, while cold shadows clung to every rock and piece of ice.

The harsh, unforgiving wind gave a sense of what life was like in this place, if any life existed. The few trees that managed to carve out their history had become mere rigid skeletons, struggling against the icy winds.

What lay beyond the visible range was hidden under the weight of the icy fog, blending with the white. There was no warmth, no colors except faint shades of gray and pale blue. In this world frozen in time, the days were similar, with no clear sun or day. Even the night here was just another extension of coldness, dark and eternal.

Ice was the sole ruler, and with it came silence. A silence that choked the world, and no one dared to break it except for the occasional crack of rocks under the immense pressure of the ice, or the sound of the wind screaming through deep valleys. But even those sounds quickly disappeared into the vast emptiness.

Somewhere in this dead world, a small child, no more than four years old, lay asleep in the deep snow. Around him, there were strange and transparent things.

Days passed, and the child remained in the same place, untouched by anything. The snow itself kept its distance from the child's resting place as if in fear. So, not much changed...except for the strange and transparent things.

The change was not significant enough to be noticed. But with each passing day, the strange and transparent things seemed to recede.

Days went by until nothing remained. Accompanying this, the child opened his eyes to the world around him, white eyes devoid of any definition of interest or emotions.

What is there...? thought the child.

There is nothing, the child concluded.

The child slowly sat up, feeling nothing, unaffected by the nature around him as if it ignored his existence.

First-person P.O.V

Why am I here...where there was no sun.

My vision was limited...but I felt the darkness around me.

I raised my hand...I possessed a transparent gray form...strange?... And that was all.

I felt nothing...no, rather, all I felt was emptiness.

And there was nothing for me except my eyes.

I rose from my place and began to walk...alone...without direction.

The things my eyes saw held little meaning.

The things my eyes did not see ceased to exist.

And so... I walked, and walked, and walked...until I felt something - disappointment.

Strange..?

I continued walking in the empty icy world, unaffected by its harshness...until I remembered something - my disappointment.

Third-person P.O.V

The small child continued walking without direction, bothered by the new emotions from his past. He remembered his interest, his lack of talent, and his disappointment.

His foggy spiritual form was unaffected by the harsh environment, but his inner emptiness continued to fill with something he once was.

And one day... he stopped walking. Not much had changed in his surroundings to stop his walk into the unknown, but the small child remembered something... his family.

He sealed the memory in his foggy mind and continued his walk.

At some point in time, the child reached a semi-enclosed area surrounded by towering mountain walls. Before him stood three majestic giant stone pillars rising towards the sky. The snow fell heavily, covering the ground with a bright white layer, illuminating the pillars with a mysterious heavenly light.

The child walked alone and steadily toward the mysterious pillars. Suddenly, a sharp ice shard pierced the cold wind and sank before him into the frozen ground, leaving network patterns on it.

On the scattered black rocky mountains, multiple groups of icy blue eyes focused on the child's foggy spiritual form. The first spear was just a warning to turn back.

The child, unable to understand the warning, continued his steady walk toward the towering three pillars, ignoring all the ice spears aimed to kill him, but they simply passed through his immaterial form.

The child stood before the pillars, and the view before him expanded his perception for the first time since he awoke.

First-person P.O.V

I found something strange. Behind the pillars, there was nothing but nothingness.

That was...the first time my eyes were astonished.

Without color, without smell, without sound, without anything else, just there.

It was the closest thing to 'void' my eyes had ever seen.

I approached this 'void,' and there was nothing.

First-person P.O.V

I opened my eyes wide, resisting the temptation to close them again. I stared at the ceiling of my room for an indefinite period, lost in my thoughts.

With a lazy sigh, I reached my hand under my pillow and pulled out my old phone to check the time. It was nine-thirty in the morning, my usual wake-up time that refused to change, even if I hadn't slept the entire night.

My mother was probably still out, as usual.

I played with my phone for a while, checking this and that, nothing important to write home about. Time passed quickly until I heard the sound of keys unlocking the door.

I put my phone aside and looked towards the door. It was indeed my mother, who entered carrying a bag larger than usual.

I didn't ask about it directly; I waited for her usual morning greeting, which came as always. "Good morning."

I replied to her greeting. "Good morning." I also expressed my previous curiosity. "What did you bring?"

She took off her shoes at the door and changed into indoor slippers. She looked at the bag in her hand for a moment and answered. "Just some bread, and a few vegetables for today's lunch."

I moved my head over my pillow with curiosity and asked, "Do they open this early in the morning?"

My mother moved towards the kitchen while saying matter-of-factly, "Some have already opened, and some have not yet. People work for themselves."

I felt a bit ashamed facing my mother's last sentence, but I felt more ashamed thinking even for a moment that she was referring to me with her words.

Ignorant of my thoughts, my mother stood in front of the kitchen door, looking at me. "Get up and wash your face to have breakfast." She entered the kitchen without further conversation.

I lazily got up from my bed and instead of heading to the bathroom as I should, I entered the kitchen, watching my mother open a milk bottle and pour half of it into the heating pot while returning the bottle to the fridge.

When she stood to watch the milk in the pot, I asked my question, "Why? You always buy vegetables after midday, you could have gotten what you brought at lower prices."

She looked at me for a while and said, "Give me that herb bag."

I did so. She measured a large spoonful of the herb I forgot the name of and put it into the heating milk pot. "Even I am tired. I'm old. I can't go back and forth like that anymore."

I felt guilt piercing my heart in a way I never thought possible. It wasn't that I didn't see the signs; I just ignored them, or commented lovingly as I always do.

I looked at my mother, whom I couldn't understand, and asked, trying to hide my guilt, "Mother, why have you never asked me to go out and look for a job? All my friends I talk to, their mothers aren't as lenient. So why?"

She looked at me with her dismissive smile as if I had said something foolish. "You talk as if you're 30, you're still young, barely 22. And I'm not lenient; you told me you had a dream. Be careful, if you're just fooling me and wasting your time just playing on that phone, I will be angry with you."

I laughed with a smile on the outside. "No, I'm really not wasting my time."

And inside, I felt guilt, shame, even self-loathing driving me crazy, because I lied to my mother.

Third-person P.O.V

In the midst of the void, the child curled up crying from his tormented memory. It was too much to bear.

Throughout his long journey, the child remembered what he once was. At first, it wasn't painful, and he relearned behavior from his memory. But recently, every memory brought only pain and feelings he preferred not to have.

And so, the child entered the void...to rest again.

But even the void did nothing to help him.

"What a beautiful being." A curious, beautiful voice came from nowhere, and at the same time was heard in the child's consciousness. "Beautiful you are."

The child struggled to rise from his curled position and examined the void around him, saying nothing, because he had no mouth. But he was curious how he heard the voice because he had no ears either. He had no sense except for his eyes.

And his white eyes, devoid of any human definition, did not betray him. Before him, from nowhere, appeared a human-like form of a tall female. Icy blue eyes held incomprehensible details, silky white hair, skin white and colder than the icy world outside the void, and a revealing black silk dress that highlighted her perfect frame.

An angel, thought the child, unable to speak.

The female bent down to examine the child with a smile, her hands behind her back. "I am not an angel, and real angels hate me. But I feel flattered, no one visits me, let alone compliments me." The female said with a magnificent smile, capable of seeing the child's thoughts.

Unable to speak, and without any real question from the beautiful female, the child simply observed her, as she did the same.

After a few seconds, the female knelt in front of the child. Even so, the female was still more than twice his height. She smiled widely and said again, "You are very beautiful, I've never seen anything like your unique existence."

Something incomprehensible moved across the beautiful female's eyes but slipped away from the child's notice.

You are very beautiful. The child complimented again in his thoughts, and he wasn't lying.

The female smiled kindly and with deep affection. She spread her pure white hands and said, "May I hold you?"

The child thought nothing of it, and she took that as consent. She leaned toward him and embraced him. Unlike the spears that passed through his immaterial form, the female was able to touch him as if he were solid, and the child himself felt her and her embrace as if his time as immaterial had finally ended.

After what seemed like long minutes, the beautiful female finally relaxed her embrace enough for them to be face to face. The child was still in her arms. Suddenly, her eyes cried crystalline icy tears, her expression one of profound pain and compassionate sympathy. "A victim of talent, are you. Do you remember your name?"

The child somehow knew that the female was aware of his name. But she asked for his sake. He squeezed his foggy memory for a long time. The female maintained her silence patiently.

Suddenly, the child remembered his name... Noah.

That was the name his mother chose for him. He also remembered the reason for this name. His mother said, "I chose this name for you because I loved it, and also the names your father chose... I won't let my son walk around with names like those names."

"Yes, that is your name, and your name alone." The beautiful female hugged him again, gently patting his head.

Noah enjoyed being solid in the arms of the beautiful female, but everything comes to an end. She finally let him stand on his feet, but she remained on her knees.

What is your name? Noah expressed his curiosity in his thoughts.

The beautiful female began to think deeply. Then she said hesitantly, "I have a name, but you can call me... Winter. I will tell you my name someday." She said this with anticipation, as if she were looking forward to it.

What is the meaning of a victim of talent? Miss Winter. Noah asked again in his thoughts.

Winter expression turned sour for a while. Then, the expression of compassion and kindness covered her beautiful face again. "It is the price paid by beings like us. But you are fine now, you have survived."

Noah didn't understand Winter's words and didn't ask again because she leaned toward him strongly, her eyes close to his. "Why don't we make a deal? I will take care of you and you will take care of me. Is that good?"

Noah, unable to understand anything, but the look of hope in Winter's eyes took him away and convinced him... and he agreed ignorantly.

Winter's smile widened, revealing her neatly arranged white teeth. She hugged Noah again warmly and stood up with him in her arms. "You are mine now. Take good care of me, okay."

Before he could answer, Winter placed her cold-feeling palm over Noah's head. A white light emerged from the point of contact, and Noah felt his consciousness slipping away for the first time since he awoke in this icy world. The last thing he saw was an ornate blue window appearing before his eyes, somehow reminding him of the beautiful Winter.

Welcome, traveler from afar.

You have received a gift from a long forgotten one. You are bound by fate to the long forgotten one - Winter.

Grow, understand, and awaken…