Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled by a king who was blind.
The Blind King wore a blindfold over the place where his eyes should have been and a heavy cloak. He always carried with him a large tome. In this tome were the names of every person in his kingdom.
His kingdom was a strange one. When children grew into adults, they forgot their parents. They forgot their pets. They forgot all their lives before. And because they couldn't remember being children, they treated their children unkindly. They had all promised never to do so as children, but those promises faded away with the rest of their memories.
Sometimes, someone new would arrive in the kingdom. The citizens would arrange for them to be brought forth immediately to the Blind King and he would write their name in his tome. Then, they would either become a citizen themselves or leave the kingdom, wandering forever in search of what they had lost.
Sometimes, someone would go to the Blind King with a dispute over land or animals. The Blind King never spoke, but somehow things always got resolved. Men often couldn't remember what their argument had been or even what their names were.
Occasionally, however, there were some citizens who rebelled against the Blind King, even without their childhood. They wanted to be free, to be able to remember what they wanted, to be able to be children again.
The Blind King would have someone bring them to his chamber, where spiders crawled on the walls weaving an endless tapestry of lost innocence.
Nothing is known after that. Those who rebel are never seen again. And those who serve the Blind King try not to notice how much the spiders have grown.
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