The Stanley Garland Citizen

Prologue: Echoes of Guidance, Whispers of Retribution Part 1: A Baltimore Kitchen – The Weight of Right and Wrong The small Baltimore kitchen was bathed in the soft morning light. A young Elias, barely five years old, with tousled brown hair, sat at the table with a kind-faced, middle-aged woman, his foster mother. She had a gentle smile, and they were engaged in quiet conversation, creating a warm and domestic atmosphere. The table was set with a simple breakfast of…

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Prologue: Desert Sands and Distant Signals Part 1: Roswell – A Fleeting Touch (Days 1-2) The high desert air of Roswell, New Mexico, shimmered under the relentless August sun. Inside a small, unassuming hospital room, a newborn Elias Thorne lay swaddled in a thin blanket, his tiny chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. His teenage mother, barely more than a child herself, gazed at him with a mixture of awe and fear. Two days. That was all the time…

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Prologue: Shifting Sands and Crimson Stars Part 1: Baltimore – The Unseen Currents (Age 4-5) Elias was a quiet child, often lost in observation. The cacophony of Baltimore still pressed in on him, but now he was beginning to discern patterns within the noise, subtle currents of emotion that flowed between people like unseen tides. He could feel the sharp edges of anger radiating from a shouting couple on the street corner, the soft waves of sadness emanating from the…

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Prologue: The Shifting Sands New Mexico – Birth (0 – 2 days) The world was a furnace of dry heat and the rasp of unfamiliar voices. For two days, the terracotta hues of adobe and the sharp, unfamiliar scent of desert sage were Elias Thorne’s entire universe. Then, a sudden shift – the cool, recycled air of an airplane, the muffled drone of the engines, and a new scent: something metallic and faintly antiseptic. His first memory wasn’t a sight,…

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