༺ Prologue ༻

│ ✿ SYNOPSIS ✿ │

╰───╯

Four friends — Jad, Elias, Maria, and Sima —

Bound together by denial.

A journey driven by curiosity, inhabited by disbelief.

The four friends venture into the wilderness of space, toward the mystery of the Abandoned Dhahira Castle, defying the legends of Al-Rasad—tales they dismiss as mere superstition. But one reckless moment shatters the balance of reality. The barrier of time breaks open, revealing the gates to the Other World.

There, where dreams take form and nightmares reign, they find themselves in the grasp of the Lords of Shadows:

Shaddad, Atheela, and Hayman.

A battle for survival begins in a realm that seeks to strip them of their very selves—leaving them as nothing more than echoes trapped forever within the castle walls.

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╭───╮

│ ✿ DEDICATION ✿ │

╰───╯

To those who never settled for seeing the world as it appears…

To those suspended between the logic of reason and the magic of imagination…

To you, who seek the forgotten doors beyond the mist of myths—

I dedicate this crossing.

✦ • ✦ • ✦

From the Author’s Perspective

💭

Logic is the chain we bind our fears with. Truth is not always what our eyes perceive, but what our souls dare to believe. Some think that myths die when we cease to believe in them—yet in truth, they only hide, waiting for a moment of weakness, a cry of denial, or a mirror deliberately shattered… to return and prove to all that the Great Crossing begins with a single step beyond the boundaries of the mind.

.

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O you who stormed beyond reason’s gate…

╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝

☠️ Let not the clay and stone’s silence deceive you ☠️

╔═━━━✠━━━═╗

For castles are chests you do not know—

╚═━━━✠━━━═╝

⚠️ And the door is a trap for those who come without caution ⚠️

╔══⚔️══╗

You shall see light as shadow in our world,

╚══⚔️══╝

👁️ And become but a phantom to those who see 👁️

...ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ...

...ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ...

Logic crashes against the walls of myth, and the castles bare their stone fangs… The four friends discover that denial was never a shield—it was the very door through which they crossed into a world that does not acknowledge the living. The Prophecy of the Great Crossing: where truth becomes illusion… and shadows reign as masters.

...****************...

This was never just a novel written by pens—it was another crossing… my own crossing into a world I never knew existed until I dared to deny my own boundaries. Four friends carried names of light and shadow, and set out to tell the world that myths are not a lie crafted by the ancients—they are scattered mirrors within the corridors of our souls, seen only when we dare to look.

If you now close these pages and feel that something within you has shifted, or that a wall in your mind has cracked just a little… then know that this was the purpose. For true crossing does not happen only to heroes inside stories—it happens to readers who let the story dwell within them.

If someone asks you one day: what happened in the end? Tell them the end is not here. The castle still stands, the shadows have not yet settled, and the door through which the four friends entered remains ajar… for those who dare.

Thank you for crossing with them… and with me.

༺═══❀═══༻

With all my love,

Viola

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