In the remote village nestled at the edge of an ancient forest, a young man named Aric arrived with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. He had come to visit his grandfather, Kioten, whom he had not seen in years. The village, shrouded in mist and mystery, was a world apart from the bustling city he had left behind.

As Aric stepped through the village’s winding paths, he was greeted warmly by Kioten, whose presence seemed to exude a serene authority. The old man’s eyes, however, held a glimmer of something deeper, something unspoken. Over a modest meal of bread and stew, Kioten imparted to Aric a set of rules for surviving in the village. The first and most crucial rule was:

“What you see is not what it is. Silence is dangerous and scary. Whenever you hear silence, run for your life.”

Kioten's voice was solemn, his gaze intense as he spoke. Aric, though puzzled, nodded in understanding, thinking it a peculiar piece of advice.

The next few days in the village were tranquil, marked by simple tasks and the rhythm of rural life. Aric ventured into the nearby forest, where he came across a man chopping wood. He was tempted to greet the man but remembered Kioten’s rule about not seeing things as they appeared. Instead, he kept his distance and continued on his way.

On another day, Aric heard a melodious song drifting through the forest. A woman, standing alone and singing softly, caught his attention. Although he wanted to comment on her beautiful voice, he chose to remain silent and continued his walk, mindful of the rules he had been given.

Returning to his grandfather’s home that evening, Aric found the house eerily quiet and empty. He called out for Kioten but received no answer. Concerned, he went to a nearby villager and inquired about his grandfather’s whereabouts.

The villager’s response was chilling: “Your grandfather passed away three years ago.”

Aric’s heart pounded. He tried to make sense of the situation. He had spoken with Kioten, shared meals with him, and received his guidance only four days ago. The reality of the villager’s words sank in, and confusion clouded his mind.

As he wrestled with the unsettling discovery, the first rule echoed in his thoughts. “What you see is not what it is. Silence is dangerous and scary.”

Aric’s pulse quickened. The silence he had heard upon returning home, the absence of his grandfather—he realized that the true nature of what he had experienced was not as it seemed. The rules were not merely advice but warnings against unseen dangers.

The fog of confusion began to lift as Aric understood the depth of Kioten’s message. The entity he had encountered was not his grandfather but something else entirely, something that had taken the guise of the familiar in order to mislead and potentially harm him. The silence he had heard was not just an absence of sound but a harbinger of danger.

Determined to heed the final lesson of his grandfather’s rules, Aric fled the village in the dead of night, leaving behind the place that had harbored hidden threats. The forest, once a place of exploration, now seemed like a maze of shadows and secrets. As he emerged from the treeline and headed towards the safety of the city, he vowed to remember the true meaning behind the first rule: that in the presence of silence, one must always be cautious, for it often concealed the most profound threats.

Thus, Aric’s visit to the village, meant to be a reunion, had become a harrowing lesson in the art of survival and the importance of discerning reality from illusion.