Michael walked with weary steps through the glowing corridors of the quantum world, the echo of the dark spirit's voice still shaking his being. Suddenly, he heard soft laughter slipping through the silence.
He turned—and saw small children running and gathering around piles of golden sand, building tiny castles with innocent joy.
He approached quietly and looked at their open books scattered on the ground. Between the lines, there were no words of death—only a simple phrase written in radiant script:
"The game has ended… it is time to return."
Michael sat among them and took a handful of sand in his hand. He felt that these symbolic castles were nothing but their short lives.
Every time a castle rose, a wave of light would come and erase it. Yet the children did not grieve… they laughed and rebuilt again, as if unaware that their time was limited.
Michael tried to hide his tears, but a small boy looked up at him and asked innocently:
"Why are you crying? Did we lose the game?"
Michael smiled despite the tears on his cheeks, gently stroking the boy's hair:
"No… you have won. You returned to the light faster than the others."
He sat with them, building a castle with his radiant hands, knowing that these brief moments of laughter were worth more than a thousand victories on the battlefield.
And deep in his heart, he swore that the coming war would not be for armies or kings… but so that children like these could live their lives fully, without their books ever saying:
"The game ended too soon."
Michael sat on the ground, his wings folded behind him, a smile on his face as he pretended to run after the children in their little game.
They laughed innocently, unaware that their books had already closed before their lives even began.
Every laugh pierced his heart like an arrow, every shining gaze reminding him of what was to come.
He lifted his eyes for a moment toward the gray sky of that world, then looked back at them and thought:
"If this is their end… then what of the one destined to carry the fate of all? What of the child of prophecy, Miros? He will be thrown into an endless war… his shoulders burdened before he even learns what childhood means."
He reached out, took the hand of a small child running toward him, and pulled him into an embrace.
Tears fell despite him, mixing with a sorrowful smile:
"You left before you knew pain… but he will live through all of it alone."
At that moment, Michael realized that the game was never just a game.
It was a silent declaration that innocence does not last…
and that the coming war would steal childhood from the entire world.