Of course, as much as I wanted to say, and confess to Arvil, my lips would not move anymore. Because even though this is a community filled with people who care for each other, who love each other, and who protect each other, one thing that cannot and that must not be denied is that the men and women of the village are ordinary civilians. They worship the gods, and they fear the devils. And whenever there are matters of the gods and the devils, and the lords, and the ladies, there will always be blind superstition behind it. And whenever there is blind superstition involved, there is darkness that has no rhyme or reason that strikes and stokes within their heart. And my younger brother, ever since he opened his eyes, experienced that wraith of darkness firsthand by the men and woman of the cold valley.

  So in essense, Cold Valley might have been the greatest heaven in the Empire for the outsiders, and even for the ones who lived here. It might have been the same to me as well. But for my little brother, it is different. Because for my little brother, it is a living, breathing hell. And according to the men and woman of this cold valley he is the devil that not only resides within that hell, but also rules it. Such is the hatred and darkness that my younger brother consumes and conquers. And the sad thing about him is that Arvil did not know this; most of the outsiders who had come into the valley over the past three years do not know this as well, but those of us who were born and stay here sadly do.

  And the worst of all of this is that no matter how much we try, we cannot do a single thing about it. Because forcefully a person opinion or character can never be changed. No, real change comes from within, when he or she has had enough, and chooses to change themselves. And finally, after so long these men and woman were changing now, little things, minute details, through that I began to observe their change. But as usual these past events that began to occur one after the other, began to spread dread within me, because I know the strings of control that I had in this village was slipping through my fingers, as once again violence choose its ways into it.

  And if I am not careful it is going to devour me as well.

  But before I could process that, the chilled air fiercely slapped and exploded on my face from the opposite end, resurrecting me to here and now, where my body had stopped before this building. And if the particles of air had not done so, then I would have continued to think about my brother even more, but this air put a stop to those thoughts.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  So after, exhaling a deep breath my eyes fondly gazed and stared at the structure of the house that was before me. The house with an un-chopped lawn, whose grass had grown uneven, whose cobbled path in between that grass would lead to the door of the house. And when one walks on the stairs leading before me to the edge of the cobbled path leading to the door, one could see the bauxite stoned stairs and the cobbled path that had been cracked, as nature has been far from kind to these stones. But this did not end there, because even though it was a single-story building, yet the cracks and fissures had spread throughout the wall, as algae and other manner of crops had spread and devoured its bottom.

  As for the structure of the caramel walls itself, there were two windows planted at the epicentre on either side of the wall, whose bolted wooden door separated its boundary, where air entered through the hall of the building. As for the sunlight to the people within this walls, on the left side of the house, in between the ceiling, and the floor, exactly at the epicentre, a huge glass pane window was constructed so that as light would pour in through that glass, the occupants of the hall could experience the sunlight from the inside.

  My body and my gaze even after the passage of three breaths, succeeding in reaching it, stopped and stared hard at the door of the building before me. Because this house before me is the oldest structure that has still survived in the entire valley. It is older than the temples of the lords and ladies. Older than even the foundation that it was built on. And it should be old, after all this house was the house of the fallen. It was the house of the broken. It was the house where I spent most of my younger life, as I took shelter and sought protection from the cruel hands of my father, and the perverse love of my mother. This was the house where I learnt, unlearnt, and relearned many things in this life.

  And each day as I pass through this house, memories pass through me. Memories of my tragic past. Memories of my present suffering. And memories of my broken future. And not only me, this house has shaped many futures, and suffered many tragedies, because this is the place where children without father and mother sought comfort. This is the place where they are cherished and protected, fed, and taught about the ways of the world. And this is also the place where most of the time the woman who raised me spends.

  And now I am about to enter this house, and encounter this woman, and meet her gaze to gaze, and eye to eye, and ask the question where both of us dared not to ask each other. And if I go entirely unprepared, she will criticize me and condemn me to such an extent that it will become entirely unbearable, thus exhaling and inhaling my breath again, my gaze watched the house till my mind eased, and as it begn to push those worries and concerns towards the deepest corner of my mind, my mind began to recover even more, after all, this was not the time or place for such thoughts. As already a place had been reserved for them.