Chapter 1: The Empty Cradle
The cradle sways, but no hand to hold,
A silent lullaby sung in the cold.
Tiny hands, so small, unseen,
Echoes of a child who might have been.
The room is still, as if it knows,
That love has fled where sorrow grows.
In the hollow of night, where shadows creep,
The orphan's heart cannot sleep.
The cradle rocks with a soft, mournful song,
But there's no one here to hear it for long.
No whispered solace, words to say,
No gentle touch to drive the dark away.
It travels on, without a guide,
A cradle none to clasp, no arms to hide.
The air is thick with ache and loss,
A small life adrift, no warmth, no gloss.
Outside, the wind wails a mournful tune,
Like the cry of a lost child beneath the moon.
The sky is heavy, the stars far away,
Every glittering light a memory gone wrong.
Far off, the echoes of life keep calling,
But within these walls, there's not a thing at all.
An empty space, one held breath tight,
A soul adrift in endless night.
Moonlight weeps through shattered panes,
The shadows dance now as ghostly chains.
A face smeared by tears looks up at the sky,
As if to ask, Why must I cry?
No answer comes but the ceaseless swell.
Of silence that wraps the orphan's shell.
Their heart, so small to comprehend,
Beats in rhythm to an unseen hand.
A cry of a baby lost in the wind,
A soul that's alone can't begin.
No motherly arms pull it near,
no fatherly voice to allay the fear.
Only darkness thick and cold as stone,
Where tales and stories go unsaid alone.
And at the corner, where the cradle stands,
An empty-handed sorrow of a child expands.
The walls, once warm, now so bare,
The whispers of comfort blown into thin air.
A promise broken, a future undone,
A life too small to ever run.
The cradle rocks, yet not in rest,
The silence deepens, fears unblest.
The wind outside seems to understand
The child is alone, with no guiding hand.
To this child, the world is so great,
Sea of dreams beyond reach to create.
Though the cradle heaves and groans,
No one answers the cries it seeks.
Each echo fades into the gloom,
A ghost that haunts a silent room.
And yet, in the quiet, something stirs,
A flicker of hope that gently blurs.
Who will hear? the orphan calls,
As the cradle sways and darkness falls.
But the only sound is the hollow sigh.
Of a child who wonders why.
The moonlight seeps, pale and thin,
A light that touches where the shadows begin.
It dances on the cradle's edge,
Whispering secrets to the broken ledge.
The night stretches out as far as an endless sea,
And the orphan's cries, stretching through endless darkness.
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