The Stranger
Son has no name he remembers and no face the world can see. Invisible to every human being around him, acknowledged only by a squirrel that follows him for food, he has spent an unknown stretch of time devising elaborate schemes to force the world to notice him. Every attempt fails, and every night he returns to the bridge he calls home and cries himself to sleep.
Whispering through his every failure is a Voice that is patient, reasonable, and kind - that has slowly convinced him his invisibility is permanent, his efforts pointless, and that perhaps surrender is the best choice. What Son doesn't realize is that the Voice belongs to something ancient and predatory. The Man in the Shadows is a farmer who cultivates doubt and harvests despair, and Son, who produces hope at an abnormal level - is his most prized crop.
What Son's also forgotten is why he is here at all.
Before the story began, in a life erased from his mind, Son made a request. He asked for the courage to face and defeat the Man in the Shadows - a force whose growing influence is slowly extinguishing Wonder itself from the world. The only path to that courage was through the fire. So he was placed directly in its center.
And he forgot.
When an ancient and fading stranger appears at his bridge one morning - the first person to ever truly see him - Son is set on a journey he doesn't understand, carrying only a glowing stone and a directive he can barely trust or understand. What waits at the end of that journey is the truth about who he is, what he asked for, and what it actually costs to become it.
The Stranger is a mythological novelette about hope, doubt, courage, and the things we forget about ourselves when the wrong voices speak loudest.
