Chapter 1 Introduction

History recalls the dark era of hunts and fires as a phase of collective madness that swept through the Middle Ages. The victims were accused of impossible, unnatural powers and punished mercilessly. And none, it is said, were truly what they were accused of being.

This, they tell us, is why we remember these “hunts” as a genocide and a tragedy, a violent chapter of prejudice and superstition fueled by political struggle and religious zealotry. Those in power claimed that these people—the marked ones—were in league with dark forces, that they spread plague, ruin, and bloodshed. And yet, one question lingers, nagging and insistent: what was the cause of such fear?

Why were the towns and villages so terrified of these “marked ones”? Why did they speak of curses and strange powers as though these beings had truly existed? Could it be that the terror had its origins in something real? Perhaps we’ve allowed ourselves to believe too readily that the victims of this hunt were simply scapegoats, that the fear that gripped entire nations was baseless.

But was it?

Dismiss it as collective madness if you wish. Yet the sheer cruelty, the relentless brutality of the hunts—doesn’t it suggest something deeper, something that had to be silenced, erased from history?

Perhaps you’ll laugh at this idea. But if we are to even consider the notion of these beings—these entities apart from humankind—we must entertain a world in which humans were not the sole sentient creatures.

We must look to the shadows and ask questions that we long ago stopped asking: What if there was a time of strange beings—of a race different from ours, a time of realms and dimensions now hidden from our sight? What if these beings, whom the stories now call “marked ones,” were not human at all?

Imagine, if you will, that they walked this planet, side by side with humankind, in an age lost to time. Some of them may have blended into our history, our bones entwined with theirs. Others might have stood apart, inhabiting hidden places, until the fear of their powers led to their ultimate destruction. Could it be that the "hunts" were merely the remnants of a more ancient, forgotten purge?

And then, the tales. Those strange stories we pass down, stories of strange powers, of children lured by forests alive with whispering voices, of enchanted forests and stones with powers. How did fairy tales come to be? We tell children of beings who don’t quite fit within the laws of nature, of dark creatures and of hidden powers.

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Fairy tales are just stories, yes? Lies told to make children sleep or behave. But every story, every lie, every rumor has a kernel of truth. We must ask ourselves what truth might be hidden in our tales.

Think of the stories we tell: of monsters, enchanted forests, the creatures who wander the world unseen. The tooth fairy, Santa Claus, ghosts. We tell these tales to children, and when we grow up, we put them aside, never really thinking more about them. They’re fun, magical stories, after all. We laugh because magic isn’t real, right? Monsters and ghosts aren’t real. We pass on the stories and never wonder if they began as something more—some strange, hidden memory transformed into a harmless fable.

But what if it was all real once? What if we remember, even faintly, creatures who once walked among us? And what if those creatures have simply gone underground, hiding in places we no longer look?

Perhaps we believe too easily that our histories are purely human, that those “marked ones” were nothing more than myth. Could it be that we wrote ourselves into the center of history, wiping out the traces of other beings along the way? Perhaps there was a deliberate effort to erase the existence of these entities, to purge them so thoroughly that all we have left of them are faint whispers—stories.

But you must be wondering… if the marked ones were real, why did they vanish? How did an entire race—powerful and feared—disappear so completely? If they truly possessed the strength and abilities we attribute to them, why didn’t they survive?

This is a question I am determined to answer.

Someone, I believe, intended to erase their very existence from memory, leaving only smudges, scraps of stories twisted into cautionary tales to haunt children’s dreams. Perhaps these marked ones had powers that threatened the ones who sought to rule, powers that could not be contained. What if the rulers of our world, the creators of history as we know it, were not human?

Imagine, then, if the descendants of these forgotten beings were to remember. If they uncovered the truth that was buried centuries ago, would they wish to eradicate us—just as they were? Would they see us as we once saw them?

I am certain that we stand on the edge of uncovering something lost, something we dared to hide. I have proof that these beings existed—artifacts and relics that defy any ordinary explanation, objects touched by something other than human hands. Once these are seen, they will alter everything we understand about the past.

And so, dear reader, I invite you to step beyond the edges of myth and legend. Open your mind to the possibility that our history is far more complicated—and far more dangerous—than we’ve ever known.

Once they see it, everyone will believe. No, everyone will know.