The

The Just as the wary city settled into uneasy slumber, a ragged boy appeared at the gate.

Every villager who glimpsed him,

who would later whisper his name, Casper Hauser, felt a tremor of guilt as if confronted

by a mirror that reflected their own hidden cruelties. Fear and fascination warred with the

murmuring crowd, for he spoke not a single word, yet carried the weight of a thousand questions.

From the drooping shoulders of the guards to the trembling hands of the magistrate,

none could hide the shudder that passed through them.

Restless whispers drifted through the long corridors of power,

where men prided themselves on order.

Every attempt to unravel his origin only deepened the shadows in which he seemed to wander.

Yielding to a curious blend of pity and dread,

the magistrate ordered the boy be clothed and fed.

Even as the first bark of the morning huntsman echoed across the misty fields, though,

the boy's vacant gaze remained fixed on some distant unseen horizon.

Perhaps it was because he was untouched by the filth of civilization,

coming from beyond the walls of man.

Something ancient, primal even, seemed to tremble behind his silent eyes.

Trailing behind him like a mournful dirge, the secrets he carried rotted in the air.

Even now he's past haunted him.

In the loneliest of hours, the boy would stand at his window, staring into the abyss while the world attempted to answer the questions he had not the voice to ask. Now the

truth of his existence hangs between the known and the unknown, as delicate and perilous as a spider's

...