The Sun Rises from the East - Episode 1

Sasteria
1 day ago
5 min read

🌑 Darkness & Struggle

The night was heavy, not just with darkness but with weight. The valley lay under a shroud so complete that even the stars seemed hesitant to appear. Low clouds clung to the mountains like dark curtains, smothering the heavens. The moon fought to break through but was swallowed again and again, leaving only fleeting glimmers of silver that slid like cold fingers across the rooftops.

The air smelled of damp earth and smoke. A faint wind stirred, rattling wooden shutters, carrying with it not laughter, not songs, not conversation—but whispers. Whispers that faded the moment they were born, as though even the wind feared to carry them too far.

It was a silence the valley had known for years. A silence that was not peace but suffocation.

Every family felt it pressing against their doors, sitting at their tables, watching them in their sleep.

🔦 A Boy and His Words

In the shadows of an alley, a boy no older than sixteen crouched low, clutching a folded piece of parchment to his chest. His hands trembled, though whether from fear or from the weight of what he carried, he could not tell. The ink stains on his fingers were smudged, his nails bitten down from nights of nervous work.

He had written by the dim light of a tallow candle, in the corner of the workshop where he labored during the day. He was supposed to copy inventories—lists of goods, debts, and deliveries—but instead, he had filled scraps of discarded parchment with words that burned in his chest.

“They cannot take what is not theirs to own. They cannot silence what was never theirs to command.”

The boy read it silently as he crouched by the wall of the abandoned shrine. His lips moved with the rhythm of prayer, though the words were his own. He knew that if anyone found the parchment, punishment would follow. But he also knew that if he did nothing, the valley would remain in chains forever.

With a trembling hand, he slid the parchment under a loose stone in the shrine wall. He pressed it deep, then laid his forehead against the cold surface of the stone. “One day,” he whispered, so faintly that even he barely heard it, “these words will be louder than me.”

✊ The Gathering Men

On the far side of the village, behind a warped wooden gate that sagged from years of disrepair, a courtyard came alive. Six men gathered around a lantern set on an overturned crate. The lantern’s glow revealed furrowed brows, cracked hands, and the shadows of men who had carried too many years of silence.

The eldest, Ibrahim, leaned forward, his voice low. “If we keep bowing, we will forget how to stand.”

Another man spat onto the ground. “And what then? They have soldiers. They have chains. They have eyes everywhere.”

“They cannot watch every heart,” Ibrahim replied, his hand trembling as he pointed to his chest. “If even one heart refuses to break, they cannot win.”

The others shifted uneasily. They had all lost something—land, dignity, sons taken, wives silenced. Fear had eaten at them, leaving behind men who spoke more to the walls than to each other. And yet here they were, gathered in defiance.

The lantern sputtered, its flame bending with the wind. Ibrahim cupped his hand around it protectively. “Even a small flame,” he said softly, “can show the way in darkness.”

From a nearby window, unseen, a woman watched. She could not hear their words, but she saw their faces, lit with a fire she had not seen in years. Her hand pressed against the glass, and she prayed that this flame would not be extinguished too soon.

🤫 The Silence of Women

Behind the walls of the houses, the women carried their own battles. Their voices had been pressed down, not by nature but by decree, by tradition twisted into shackles. They tended their homes, baked their bread, rocked their infants—but their silence was heavy, sharp, alive.

A mother, Amina, sat by the cradle of her infant son, rocking him slowly. Beside her sat her eldest daughter, Laila, her eyes wide, her mind restless. Outside, faint voices drifted from the courtyard where men had gathered.

“Mother,” Laila whispered, “why don’t they let us speak?”

Amina kissed her daughter’s brow. “Because they fear what we would say.”

The girl frowned, not understanding, but she tucked the answer away. Her mother’s words would echo long after childhood ended.

In another home, a widow named Samira sat in silence before a low wooden table. Her husband had been taken years ago, accused of speaking too boldly. The neighbors had stopped asking about him long ago, but Samira had never stopped setting a place for him.

At night, when the lamps dimmed, she took out her journal—a battered book with pages worn thin. By candlelight she filled it with words she dared not speak, stories she dared not share.

“If I do not write,” she whispered to herself, “then my silence will kill me.”

Her hand trembled as she wrote, but she did not stop. She wrote for her daughters, for their children, for the day when her silence would no longer be necessary.

⛓️ Chains Invisible

Tradition hung like iron around every neck. The villagers told themselves the rules kept them safe, but they knew in their hearts it was a lie.

Boys were told to bow their heads and obey. Girls were told to laugh softly, if at all. Fathers repeated the words of their fathers, and no one asked why. Customs became cages, passed down as if they were heirlooms.

An elder, Yusuf, sat on the steps of his doorway, watching his grandchildren chase each other in the dust. Their laughter rose, clear and bright, until their mother hushed them with a sharp gesture. The sound fell, cut short.

Yusuf sighed, leaning heavily on his cane. He remembered his own boyhood, when laughter filled the valley, when fields were alive with singing. He remembered climbing trees, racing through streams, shouting to the sky without fear. Now, even joy had become dangerous.

His eyes closed, and in the quiet of his heart, he asked, When did we forget how to live?

🌌 The Longest Night

The hours dragged. Owls called from the cliffs, their cries mournful. Dogs barked at shadows no one could see. The wind whistled through narrow alleys, sounding like a lament sung for a forgotten people.

The valley seemed frozen, as if time itself refused to move. Yet beneath the silence, life stirred.

The boy’s hidden parchment waited under the stone, ink ready to ignite the courage of someone braver. The men whispered in courtyards, their flame fragile but alive. The women’s silence swelled with power, carrying the weight of prayers and unspoken stories.

The elder’s heart wrestled with doubt, the first crack in a wall built over generations.

Chains rattled faintly in the darkness, but they no longer seemed eternal. The silence was heavy, but it was not absolute.

And though the night stretched endlessly, it carried within it the faintest promise: that dawn might come again.

✨ The longest night is not the end, but the beginning. The whispers have stirred, the silence has cracked, and the chains tremble. The dawn has not yet come—but it is near. Join me in the next episode, where hope begins to awaken and the seeds of tomorrow are planted.