Heleaos' Long Journey Home

By (author) Yammine, Soha
There was or there was not in the olden times a mountain. A mountain magical, enchanted, like no other in the world, because it had once been home to the gods. But the gods had long since left and now their only offspring remained to guard his parents' abode and watch over men from on high. But men hadn't come to the mountain for generations. They may even have forgotten the path thither. Heleaos had watched them migrate down the valleys to disappear in the city by the sea. One night Heleaos dreamed of his childhood companions and a song long forgotten. How could he have forgotten that voice, that girl? Sarah, who used to hum that song while she followed his mother around the garden. When he woke up, he found his parents' parting gifts: a lute left by his mother the wind and a smooth, round, red gem, its glow as warm as the eye of his father the sun. Heleaos packed his meagre belongings, wrapped himself in his cloak, picked up his staff, and set off down the mountain. In pursuit of people. In the hope of finding them and bringing them back to his and their home. And in the hope of finding Sarah. Little did he know his journey would take him around the world, to lose himself in lands breathtakingly beautiful amid strangers who would become, along the way, as close to him as kin.