In the Dark Years, When Cannons Sang Louder Than Prayers
In the dark years, when the thunder of cannons was more familiar than the whisper of prayers, a baby cried for the first time in a world already scorched by ambition and blood. The city where he was born had long since lost the meaning of peace; only dust and the sound of weeping served as lullabies. Eventually, they moved to another village, far away from that place, leaving behind not a single trace.
The child was named Alexander.
His first five years were far from the stories of an ordinary childhood. In the midst of an endless drought, the sky refused to release its rain, and the earth retaliated by casting dust into every corner of life. His mother—the only light in the darkness of his existence—grew ever weaker, her frail body tormented by a sickness that would not heal. When Alexander turned ten, the woman who had given him all the love the world could offer drew her final breath—silent, without a warm embrace, her eyes fixed on a sky that showed no mercy.
His father? Nothing more than a shadow in stories, fallen on the battlefield long before Alexander ever had the chance to know his name. And so, silence took full control of his world. No direction. No purpose. No strength left to go on.
He nearly gave up.
"Why should I keep living in this world?!" he cried.
But then, a quiet voice deep within whispered, "If you give up now, there will never be anyone to hold your hand."
Hunger forced him to the city market—a place where life could be traded for a piece of bread, and hope was bartered among tattered goods. There, he saw people exchanging their last possessions just to eat. Returning to the dilapidated house his mother left behind, he searched every corner where memories still lingered, and began trading away her treasured belongings for mere handfuls of rice. And from there, life slowly began to grow again—like a small shoot defying the barren earth.
But life, always in motion, stirred a spark of curiosity within him. One day, as his hand brushed against an old wooden box beneath the bed, he found a faded photograph—his mother, standing with quiet grace beside a man cloaked like a king. His heart pounded. Who was this man? Could it be… the father he had only ever known in silence?
He dug deeper, peeling back the layers of secrets his mother had kept hidden. Among the fragments of the past, he found another photo: himself as a baby, in his mother's arms, standing next to the same man. And—most startling of all—another woman stood beside the man, holding the hand of a child about the same age as Alexander.
His world shifted in an instant. The questions his mother had never answered now loomed like a towering riddle. In the stillness, he held the photo tightly in his hand. In that moment, he knew—his life was never meant to end in hunger and grief.
"So, where is my kingdom?! shouldn't that legacy belong to me?!"
Perhaps, from these ruins… his destiny had only just begun.