Before steel and walls. 

Before the Gifted and Forgotten. 

Before the Hollowed or the demons.

They say, there was something powerful. 

Not humans. Not monsters. Something older.

Angels. 

That's what people called them. 

Thirteen in all. 

Born from stars or perhaps from something that came before it. 

They were said to be hidden among the living, not to rule, but to protect.

Each bore a gift. Said to hold a force the world couldn't live without. 

That kept a part of the world in balance.

The people once built temples in their names. Prayed for hours. Candles burned for days.

Crops were offered. Names were spoken. Songs were sung.

The Angels watched, and the world held.

But time forgets. And people forget faster. 

They stopped looking at the stars. 

They looked down instead. At their dirt. Their hunger. The blood in their hands. 

Kindness… Truth… Slowly disappeared. Fear grew. People stopped asking and started taking.

And the Angels watched it all. 

Some say they wept. Others say they warned us, and we didn't listen.

But most believe they simply faded. Not gone, but abandoned. Because they were no longer welcomed in the world they once guarded.

That was when the Hollowed came.

And nothing was the same.

Whole histories erased. Towns destroyed. Records overwritten. Names vanished. Maps blurred. 

People ran. People hid. People died.

People said the world was dying.

But it wasn't death. 

Some fell to their knees and begged the Angels to return. Others blamed them. Cursed them. 

But no one came.

The old texts were banned. Temples collapsed. What remained was hidden. 

Now only the desperate speak of them. 

In the whispers. Behind closed doors. 

Of thirteen names they were told never to say.

Most people don't believe anymore.

But sometimes… in unexpected places… the forgotten names return.

Some say the Angels still watch.

That they never stopped.

That they're waiting. 

Not for prayers.

Not for love.

For something else.

And maybe then, the stars will listen again.