They call him a monster, the Headless Rider, the soul that hunts in the night. But if you listen close, beneath the thunder of hooves, you’ll hear something softer. You’ll hear grief.
He rides not for blood, not for vengeance but for the sound of his own heartbeat, the memory of a face he once wore. Every village he passes forgets a name; every candle he blows out remembers one. He is not searching for a head. He is searching for himself.
His curse is not the fire in his hollow chest, but it’s the silence that answers when he whispers his name. Somewhere between the living and the dead, he lingers, trying to recall what it felt like to be real.
They say when he stops riding, the world will end. But maybe that’s not the warning, maybe it’s the wish. Because all he ever wanted was to rest, and to be remembered not as terror… but as a man.
Echoes: If you lost every trace of who you are, your face, your name, your voice, what would be left to prove you ever lived?
