One: The Void (Prologue)

Before the story, understand the character...

Day after day, I keep up the appearance of normality. All of the smiling and the half-hearted regard for those around me did nothing to quell the insatiable black hole that I felt inside. I remembered my life as a child; the excitement of new discoveries and adventures. Every day was spent in the blissful naivety of what our minds could create until the street lamps came on and each of us had to scurry home. I remember as well the realization of friendship… of love.

The older I became, the more the disconnect to the world around me grew. I could feel the emptiness burrowing deeper into my soul, gnashing and gnawing at my heart. Even then, many others never seemed to notice. I could only guess that it was because they too felt the same. Like me, they felt the longing for something more.

I tried every manner of thing to quell the hollow feeling. Days were filled with constant work to keep my mind busy, while nights became a quest to please my insomnia. The jump between partners offered moments of reprieve, yet only tore open my chest even further. 

I then escaped into stories, filling my mind with fantastical places and characters, which only opened a new wound of unworthiness. I was nothing like the heroes in these tales, I could never identify with their superficial view of existence. They claimed it all to be about truth and justice. Everything about them seemed to be in black and white, but the world around them was doused in gray. 

I put these stories away, and once again reached out for anything, but kept finding nothing. I searched through history, only to find the depths of mysteries and questions I had never thought to ask.

I lost myself in the search for something more, things of humanity's distant past. I began to meet those like me, my favorite among them an elderly woman named Tabitha, who would captivate me with tales of other worlds. We became great friends, drank tea that I never liked, and shared our daily encounters. 

I miss her terribly, but she will always be with me. For one reason or another, she had left me a small wooden box, covered in markings of a language I had never seen. It was one she would often refer to in the tales she weaved, and she had promised it to me, assuring me that it would change how I feel about... everything. 

I could feel something pulling me toward it, a compelling spirit that I had long forgotten. Much like I felt as a child, I was excited about discovery. What I didn't expect was the world that such a little box could open.