He didn't know how much time had passed.
In a world without sun or moon, time did not exist… only waiting.
Rant sat upon a gray rock, as ash drifted gently around him—
quiet as the breath of the dead.
The wind was faint, whispering his name.
> "The beginning of forgetting…"
He repeated the words in silence, trying to understand them.
Did it mean he was born to forget… or to be forgotten?
Behind him, soft footsteps echoed.
He didn't turn—he already knew who it was.
She appeared—the gray girl, with her long dress and eyes that bore no color.
She spoke with a voice calm as the rain:
> "You kill the world when you remember it… and revive it when you forget."
He turned to her, his gaze burning with a faint black glow.
> "You want me to forget? After I burned just to remember who I am?"
She smiled faintly, with painful grace.
> "Sometimes… remembering is just another form of dying."
She approached slowly and sat before him, placing her palm on the ash between them.
Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if revealing a long-lost secret:
> "Those who walk out of the fire are not allowed to carry their past with them…
for the fire does not only cleanse the flesh—it erases the old story."
Rant fell silent.
Her words pierced through him like a spear made of cold light.
> "But if I forget… who will I be?"
She answered without raising her eyes:
> "You'll be whatever the ash writes about you."
The ash swirled between them, and for a moment, his reflection appeared—
but it wasn't Rant's face.
It was that of a small child, fear glowing in his eyes…
the same child who once ran through the flames.
He reached out to touch the ash, and the image vanished.
His voice trembled with suppressed anger:
> "I don't want to disappear."
The gray girl smiled—her expression beyond description.
> "Then you'll fight the ash itself… and you'll see what awaits when forgetting becomes a weapon."
Then she stood and turned toward the horizon,
where a light was slowly tearing through the sky.
> "Beyond that horizon lies a door that only opens to those who forget their true name."
He looked at her for a long time, then said in a deadly calm tone:
> "I will not forget… even if the world burns again."
Her voice came, sadder than a warning:
> "When you say that… the trial begins."
And she vanished—like smoke carried by the wind.
Rant was left alone,
the ash moving around him like a sea of memories waiting to consume him.
He lifted his head toward the gray sky and whispered:
> "Then let forgetting be my first enemy."
And thus began the second stage of his journey—
the trial of memory in a world where no one remembers who they are.