#Chapter 1: Prologue
Let us begin this story not where the journey started, but at a moment when everything came to an end.
It was a cold, miserable afternoon, a day completely drowned in the color gray. The rain fell without pause, relentless and unforgiving. A young woman walked away from us. She was cloaked in a light, slightly oversized coat, her figure small and fragile beneath a dark umbrella. Her footsteps were slow, measured, carrying her farther and farther into the downpour until she was nothing more than a fading silhouette.
She never looked back.
Though her face was turned away, the silent misery of her departure was agonizingly clear. Tears blending instantly with the rain, tracked down her cheek. She was crying quietly, profoundly, and walking forward with a certainty that implied she would never return to this place or to him.
Watching her vanish was a young man. He stood under the narrow shelter of an awning, his dark clothes offering him the only sense of protection from the storm. His gaze was fixed on the space where she used to be. The scene was perfectly still, save for the rain. As she disappeared, a small, involuntary tear escaped his eye, matching the droplets falling from the sky. He lowered his head, the sound of the rain amplifying the silence in his chest. Finally, he spoke, his voice low and utterly broken. "From this moment," he said, "I started to hate rain." He stared at the wet pavement, the reflection of the gray sky distorting his face. He felt the weight of everything that had happened and everything that would never be.
"I just wanted a normal life," he whispered, the declaration heavy with regret. He then pulled his hoodie up, turned his back on the path she had taken, and walked in the opposite direction, toward the unknown future. This is where our main story begins.