It was a warm, thick evening in Granny’s childhood village, the kind of summer day when the air felt too heavy, like it might suffocate you if you stood still too long. The sun, hanging low in the sky, was a ball of red fire, casting long, crooked shadows across the fields. Granny and her two younger cousins had been running wild in the park all afternoon, their laughter sharp against the silence that usually hung over the village. They decided to play badminton, swinging their rackets lazily in the fading light. But, as the game continued, the shuttlecock suddenly took off, soaring far higher than anyone could have predicted.
It flew, almost as if it had a mind of its own, and landed softly on the roof of a building nearby. Granny’s heart skipped a beat. The building was unlike anything the village had ever seen. In a place where simple cottages dotted the land, this building stood out—tall, imposing, and made of cold, grey stone that seemed to suck the warmth from the air. It was new, out of place, and no one could explain why it had been built there.
