The sun, a persistent golden eye, had just begun its slow ascent, its first hesitant rays slicing through the chinks in the hut's weathered timber. They painted stripes across the dusty floor and, eventually, a warm line across Hans's face. He stirred, a yawn stretching wide, and instinctively reached for the warmth of his mother beside him. His hand met cool, empty fabric.

His eyes snapped open. The spot where she had lain was a neatly folded blanket, untouched since she had laid him down. The faint, sweet scent of her, usually lingering like morning dew, was gone. Hans sat up, a small frown creasing his brow. "Mother?" he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. Only the chirping of a lone bird outside answered him.

He scrambled out of bed, his small feet pattering on the worn wooden floor. He checked the small kitchen nook, the rough-hewn table, the single wooden stool. Empty. The hearth, usually still warm with embers, was cold. A knot of unease began to tighten in his stomach. His mother never left without a note, or a gentle whisper to him if she had to fetch water or berries before he woke.

He pushed open the creaking door, the morning light momentarily blinding him. The forest, usually a comforting sentinel of ancient trees, felt different now too quiet, too vast. He called her name, louder this time, his voice a reedy thread against the burgeoning silence of the woods. "Mother! Where are you?"

No answer. Only the rustle of leaves in a breeze that felt suddenly cold. Hans walked to the edge of the small clearing, peering into the dense undergrowth. His gaze fell upon the faint imprint in the dew-kissed grass, leading away from the hut. Two sets of tracks one small, one larger but only the small one returned. He followed the larger tracks a few paces, his heart thudding against his ribs like a trapped bird. They ended abruptly, as if the ground had swallowed them whole.

Days blurred into a hazy succession of sunrises and sunsets. The initial panic gave way to a gnawing emptiness, a constant ache in his chest. Hans, barely seven summers old, quickly learned the brutal lessons of solitude. His mother had taught him much about the forest: which berries were safe, how to set a simple snare, how to identify the distant call of a hawk from the closer cry of a squirrel. These lessons, once shared with laughter and gentle guidance, now became his grim instructors in survival.

He ate what he could find wild berries, small fish from the nearby stream, roots dug from the earth. His hands, once soft and cherubic, became calloused and scraped. His clothes, too large at first, now hung loosely on his frame, a testament to the meager fare. He learned to mend them with coarse thread and needles fashioned from bone.

Nights were the hardest. The comforting glow of the oil lantern was a memory, replaced by the deep, impenetrable black of the forest. He would huddle beneath his blanket, clutching the small, smooth stone his mother had given him, its coolness a faint echo of her touch. He missed her stories, her songs, her very presence that filled the small hut with warmth. He missed her whispered "Goodnight, my little hero."

The emblem she wore, the one she had touched so tenderly that last night, often flickered in his mind. He didn't know what it meant, only that it seemed important to her. He often found himself staring at the spot where her tracks vanished, a strange pull drawing him to that small patch of forest floor. He would spend hours there, sometimes tracing patterns in the dirt, sometimes just sitting, hoping that if he waited long enough, she would simply reappear.

He was still just a boy, small for his age, but the forest had begun to etch itself onto him, sharpening his senses, hardening his resolve. The quiet had become his companion, the solitude a crucible. He still asked the questions, though now only to himself, whispered to the silent trees: "What happens to us when he is unsealed?" And more urgently, "What happened to Mother?" He didn't know it yet, but the answers, steeped in ancient prophecies and cosmic conflicts, lay waiting for him, just beyond the edges of his solitary world. His journey, born not of choice but of absence, had truly begun.