The sky was not always silent.

  There was a time when looking upward did not mean waiting for an answer…

  because the answer was already there.

  Kokabiel remembers.

  Not in words. In sensation.

  The steady warmth along his back the first time he unfolded his wings.

  The absolute certainty that every heartbeat had purpose.

  The quiet knowledge that even when he faltered, someone was watching.

  There were no orders. No punishments.

  Only presence.

  He was young then. He did not understand concepts like war or fall.

  He only knew that the sky held him.

  Look at me, he thought once, stretching his wings with clumsy pride.

  And something answered.

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  Not a voice.

  Not a face.

  A gentle pressure — like an unseen hand pressing down in affirmation.

  Yes.

  That was enough.

  For ages, the sky answered like that. With warmth. With meaning. With direction.

  Until one day… nothing.

  At first, it was subtle. A delayed sensation. A silence that lasted one heartbeat longer than it should have.

  Kokabiel did not panic. Children do not doubt their father’s presence over a moment of distraction.

  But the silence returned.

  And returned.

  And stayed.

  “…?”

  He unfolded his wings again.

  No pressure. No warmth.

  Only sky.

  Empty.

  Kokabiel waited.

  The others did not seem to notice. They continued obeying. Continued following orders whose origin they no longer questioned.

  But he felt it.

  Something was gone.

  Not fallen. Not destroyed.

  Gone.

  Come back, he thought once.

  Nothing.

  I am here, he thought again.

  Nothing.

  For the first time, the sky did not answer.

  And something inside Kokabiel fractured — quietly, permanently.

  He did not cry. He did not scream.

  Angels did not do that.

  But he learned something that day:

  Silence hurts more than punishment.

  Not knowing is worse than loss.

  And if no one answers… then something is wrong with the world.

  Years later, when others accepted peace, Kokabiel could not.

  Because to him, peace was not an agreement.

  It was surrender to the silence.

  And Kokabiel never learned how to accept that his father had simply… stopped watching.

  Volume III will explore the consequences of silence, absence, and the refusal to accept that everything is fine.