The Amulet
The desert became his prison, a vast and merciless wasteland where time lost all meaning. Days bled into years, years into decades, and yet Azibo did not age, did not die, only suffered. He wandered aimlessly beneath the scorching sun, his body withstanding the torment of the elements, but his mind fractured beneath the weight of an endless curse.
Over a century of solitude.
Over a century of nightmares.
Every time he closed his eyes, death found him. A thousand different ways, a thousand different lifetimes—drowning, burning, being torn apart, crushed beneath mountains, impaled by spears, devoured by beasts. Every night, he died again and again, trapped in an endless cycle of torment.
He screamed into the silence, begged the heavens for answers, but the gods did not listen. If they had ever existed, they had abandoned him.
Then, one fateful night beneath a moon swollen with silver light, something changed.
Azibo had long given up on finding salvation, yet something called to him. A whisper on the wind, a pull deep in his chest. His feet carried him forward without thought, his weary body obeying an unseen force.
Then he saw it.
Half-buried beneath the dunes lay the ruins of an ancient temple—its stone pillars cracked by time but still standing, its entrance gaping like the mouth of some forgotten god. Symbols, worn but still faintly visible, etched a story into the walls—one he could not yet understand.
He stepped inside, drawn to the heart of the ruins. There, beneath layers of sand and stone, he uncovered a hidden chamber, untouched by time. At its center, resting atop an altar, lay the Amulet.
It was small, no larger than the palm of his hand, its metal unlike anything he had ever seen—deep obsidian black, veined with silver that shimmered like liquid moonlight. At its heart sat a stone, smooth and polished, glowing with a faint, ethereal blue light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
The moment his fingers brushed against it, a wave of peace washed over him.
The torment in his mind ceased.
The endless cycle of death that had plagued his sleep for over a century was broken.
For the first time in one hundred years, Azibo closed his eyes…
And the nightmares did not come.
Azibo did not know who had placed it there or why. He did not understand its origins, only that it had chosen him. The amulet’s magic wrapped around his soul like a protective shield, a barrier against the horrors that had tormented him for so long.
But deep in his heart, he knew one thing for certain: power always comes with a price.
The ruins where he had found it whispered of an ancient legend. A forgotten deity, sealed away. A protector turned prisoner. And though Azibo did not know the full story, he knew this much:
The amulet did not belong to him.
It had merely allowed itself to be worn.
