Ayla was twenty-one years old.
And if there was one thing she could do for hours without noticing time pass...
it was read.
Books had always fascinated her.
Old books.
New books.
Forgotten books.
Books whose pages had survived people, nations and even entire eras.
Some told stories.
Some recorded history.
And some made it difficult to tell the difference between the two.
Ayla lived far in the future.
A future built from what remained after...
The Unchecked Carnage.
She had been sitting among countless books only moments earlier.
One of them was still open on her table.
A book about a young man.
Safsan.
Then she heard it again.
“Ayla!”
Someone was calling from outside her window.
Ayla stood.
She walked toward the window and looked down.
An old man stood below.
She recognized him immediately.
Jalatta.
Somehow...
he was still alive.
Age had changed him.
His face carried years that should never have belonged to one person.
His body moved slower.
Time had left its marks everywhere.
But it was him.
Jalatta had somehow survived something that should not have been survivable.
“Ayla!”
She leaned slightly toward the window.
“What happened?”
“You need to come down.”
“Why?”
Jalatta looked toward somewhere beyond the buildings.
Then back at her.
“You need to see this.”
Ayla glanced back at the open book.
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For a moment, she considered staying.
Then she left it behind.
A few minutes later, she joined Jalatta outside.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“That usually means you don't want to answer.”
Jalatta smiled slightly.
“You read too much.”
Ayla looked at him.
“There is no such thing.”
They continued walking.
The world around them was alive.
Not untouched.
Not healed.
Alive.
There was a difference.
People had rebuilt what they could.
Markets had returned.
Children ran through the streets.
Workers carried tools and supplies.
People argued.
People laughed.
People complained about ordinary things.
Life had continued.
But everywhere Ayla looked, there were reminders that the world around her had been built from what remained.
Some buildings had never been repaired.
Some streets ended where older streets should have continued.
Some structures belonged to a world that no longer existed.
And some people carried scars that no building could show.
Ayla looked at Jalatta.
“You still haven't told me where we're going.”
“We're almost there.”
As they continued, they passed an old tree.
Several people were gathered nearby.
And beside the road sat a man with a bottle in his hand.
The smell of alcohol followed him before his words did.
He looked toward Ayla and Jalatta.
Then suddenly raised his voice.
“The elders sit beneath the tree to judge a poor man's case!”
People nearby glanced toward him.
The man continued.
“They swear that truth will prevail!
Pure and cold!”
Jalatta kept walking.
Ayla slowed slightly.
“A man is dragged before them!
Accused of stealing an ox from his friend!”
The man raised his bottle.
“According to the sick old judgment, they should lock him inside a dark cell!”
He laughed to himself.
Then leaned forward as though he were about to reveal the greatest secret in existence.
“But the thief brings freshly roasted, juicy meat!”
He slapped his knee.
“And puts it right in front of them!”
A few people nearby shook their heads.
The man suddenly threw both arms into the air.
“OROMO LOVE MEAT!”
He burst into laughter.
“So the elders free the thief!”
He pointed toward nobody in particular.
“And the poor man is the one who suffers!”
He laughed again.
Some ignored him.
Some looked annoyed.
Others smiled as though they had heard the story many times before.
Ayla stared at him for another second.
Then caught up with Jalatta.
“What was that about?”
Jalatta looked ahead.
“People say strange things when they drink.”
Ayla glanced back.
The man was still talking to anyone willing to listen.
SEENEE had heard him too.
But he said nothing.
Ayla and Jalatta continued.
Soon, Ayla noticed something.
They were no longer the only ones walking in that direction.
People were emerging from different streets.
Families.
Children.
Workers.
Old men and women.
Some spoke excitedly.
Others walked in complete silence.
The closer Ayla and Jalatta came to their destination...
the larger the crowd became.
“What is happening?”
Jalatta did not answer.
They turned a corner.
Then another.
And finally...
they reached an enormous open space.
Ayla stopped.
Hundreds of people were already there.
Maybe more.
Almost all of them were looking toward the same thing.
Ayla followed their eyes.
And slowly...
looked up.
Her expression changed.
A statue towered above the square.
A man.
Not a boy.
A fully grown man.
Broad shoulders.
A powerful body.
He wore a long, battle-worn outfit that wrapped around him like something between the clothing of a warrior and the remains of a forgotten symbol.
Green.
Red.
Black.
Across his back rested a golden emblem.
His face was calm.
Older.
Hardened.
Not angry.
Not smiling.
The face of someone who looked as though he had survived more than anyone standing beneath him could understand.
But Ayla's eyes moved downward.
Chains hung from both of the statue's hands.
One from the left.
One from the right.
Heavy chains descended toward the stone beneath his feet.
He was not holding them like weapons.
They looked like something he had carried.
Something that had followed him.
Something that had once tried to bind him.
Yet the statue stood upright.
Unbowed.
Behind the statue rose an enormous structure shaped like a question mark.
Ancient.
Impossible.
Its surface looked carved from something darker than ordinary stone.
The inside of its shape glowed faintly.
Ayla stared.
For some reason...
the entire monument felt less like something built to celebrate a person...
and more like a question nobody had managed to answer.
Jalatta stood silently beside her.
Ayla looked toward him.
“What is this?”
Jalatta did not answer immediately.
His eyes remained on the statue.
“They finally revealed it.”
“Revealed what?”
Jalatta looked at her.
Then back at the monument.
Ayla stepped closer.
People moved around her, but she barely noticed them.
At the base of the statue were words carved deeply into the stone.
She read them.
THE GHOST OF THE WAR
Ayla remained still.
“The Ghost of the War...”
She looked back up.
The chains.
The clothing.
The shoulders.
Then the face.
Something inside her shifted.
She had seen that face.
Not exactly like this.
This version was older.
Stronger.
Changed by years she knew nothing about.
But she knew those eyes.
Ayla's mind returned to the room she had just left.
To the book lying open on her table.
To the young man whose life she had been reading.
The dreams.
The black snake.
Odania.
Safuu.
The war.
Safsan.
Ayla's eyes widened slightly.
She looked at Jalatta.
Before she could ask the question...
Jalatta spoke.
“The Ghost of the War.”
That was all he said.
Ayla looked back at the statue.
She did not know what had happened to the young man in her book.
She did not know how he became this.
She did not know why chains hung from both of his hands.
And she did not know what he had done for people to build something this enormous in his memory.
But there was something else.
Something that bothered her even more.
The book had said he died.
Ayla stared at the statue.
Then she remembered the words on the page changing.
For several seconds, she forgot about the crowd around her.
And then...
SEENEE saw it too.
The crowd.
Jalatta.
Ayla.
The monument.
His eyes slowly traveled upward.
Past the chains.
Past the strange clothing.
Past the golden symbol.
Until he reached the face of the man carved into stone.
Then SEENEE looked at the enormous question mark behind him.
Finally...
his eyes moved toward the words beneath the statue.
THE GHOST OF THE WAR
SEENEE said nothing.
No joke.
No question.
No explanation.
No clever observation.
Nothing.
He simply stared.