Inheritance: The Lost Prayer

The ruins of the monastery always whispered, but no one listened anymore.

Toma did.

He had grown up on their edges, sleeping under shattered stone arches and moss-covered saints whose faces time had erased. The villagers called him "beynaam" — the nameless. No parents, no lineage, just a boy who wandered too close to sacred ground.

They thought the ruins were cursed. He thought they were peaceful.

One dusky evening, when the clouds hung low and heavy like bruises, Toma stumbled into a crypt beneath the chapel’s remains — a space no one dared to enter. Inside, half-buried in dust and time, he found it.

A scroll, wrapped in vines and sealed with wax that shimmered faintly like it remembered the stars.

He unsealed it.

No rituals. No chants. Just instinct — or maybe destiny. The moment the parchment unfurled in his hands, a pulse of warm, golden light shot through the crypt. It was soft at first. Then it roared like awakening thunder.

The next morning, the crops bloomed overnight. Sick villagers rose from their beds. An old woman’s eyesight returned. A blind dog barked and chased birds again.

They traced it all back to him.

The orphan boy. The nameless one.

Faith or Fear?

At first, they brought him offerings — food, candles, whispers of gratitude. They asked for blessings, for healing. For answers.

But soon, the questions began.

“Why him?”

“Who gave him this power?”

“What if he’s not divine... but dangerous?”

Priest Malen, who hadn’t smiled in years, stood on the church steps and declared, “True gifts come to the worthy, not the lost. Beware the boy who skipped belief and summoned power.”

The tide turned fast.

Where once there were offerings, now there were locked doors. Where there were prayers, now there were rumors. Some villagers said the boy had summoned demons in disguise. Others feared the scroll was cursed and he was its vessel.

Toma never defended himself. He didn’t understand it either.

But each night, he would return to the monastery ruins. Sit in the light of the scroll that pulsed gently beside him. And listen.

It whispered to him now.

Not words. Feelings. Longings. Regrets. Prayers buried under centuries. It didn’t demand worship. It didn’t seek praise.

It just wanted to be heard again.

The Decision

The village gathered in the square one night under torchlight. Rain threatened above. Fear thickened the air.

“He must return the scroll,” said one.

“Or leave,” said another.

“Or burn,” whispered someone else.

But just as they moved toward the boy, scroll clutched tight in hand — something happened.

The old church bell rang.

No one had touched it in decades. Yet it rang clear. A second time. Then a third.

They all turned. The ruined monastery glowed faintly on the hill, bathed in soft golden light — not fire, not storm, just... light.

Then silence.

Toma stood in the middle, eyes closed, arms lowered. The scroll had vanished. So had the glow. Only his quiet breath remained.

Legacy

He never spoke of what happened.

But the crops never failed again.

The sick rarely stayed sick.

And the whispers? They softened into stories.

Some say he was a prophet. Others — a mistake the divine forgave. Some still fear him. But most just remember the boy who listened to ruins, and awakened something old and kind.

They don’t call him “nameless” anymore.

Now, they call him...

“The Inheritance.”