We both began walking back into the forest, to the place where my old Treehouse stood—full of memories.
I still remember… that treehouse.
My mother built it herself. With a rope ladder, rotting wooden floors, and a small lantern she always lit at night.
We lived near the village—close enough to buy food, far enough to avoid attention.
She always said, "You must not go outside. Not yet. The world isn't safe for you."
As a child, I only knew that I was different. But I never knew just how different I truly was. And on the day I was born… when my soul merged with the element of earth… she said the sky trembled, and the ground sighed.
But after that, my power vanished. That aura disappeared. And our life returned to silence.
I didn't know… that from that day on, eyes were watching.
Searching for a single soul.
A soul that has now returned.
I couldn't sleep that night.
The cloudy sky, the damp earth, and the piercing wind reminded me of the past. A time still full of fear… and love that kept burning, even in the midst of hardship.
I can still picture her face—my mother. Her hair was jet black though it had grown messy, her eyes often tired, but always filled with love when she looked at me.
We lived in the treehouse she built with her own hands. A small wooden space with no door—just a curtain of cloth as cover. That was where I grew up.
Every morning, she would climb down and walk the narrow path to the village. The market was her battlefield, where she sold anything we could gather—roots, mushrooms, old fabric, sometimes even soap she made herself.
She always came home breathing heavily, sometimes with small cuts on her hands or blisters on her feet.
And when night came, she would sit beside me, holding my hand.
"I'm sorry, Hiro… this world is too cruel for you…"
I didn't know what to say. Five years old, six years old… it was all too heavy to understand.
All I did was sit in silence, staring at the wooden walls, listening to her cry softly.
Held back, as if she didn't want me to hear.
But I knew.
I knew she was suffering—because of me.
On one quiet winter night, I heard her breathing grow heavy.
She couldn't get up the next morning. I held her, called her… but her body never moved again.
I was eight years old then. And the world collapsed in a single night.
I dug the earth with my bare hands—frozen and hard—beneath the great tree where our house stood. I buried her there.
With tears I couldn't count, falling over and over.
I had no parting words.
Only silence. And the feeling of being shattered.