"Death is not the end. It is the doorway through which I pass again... and again... and again."
— Last entry of Subject 161, recovered from the archives of the Astral Rebirth Station
The first thing I felt was nothing. No pain. No breath. Only silence—vast, endless, collapsing inward like a dying star. I floated in it, weightless and detached, a mind with no name, a body with no voice.
Then came the falling.
I don't remember being born. I don't remember where I came from. But I remember dying. Again. And again. And again.
And this time… I woke up. Not all at once. Not like in the stories.
It began with heat—damp, clinging heat. Then the scent—metallic, bitter, a mix of rust, bark, and blood. Then the sound: a low hiss winding through twisted roots… and something breathing.
The ground beneath me pulsed faintly, like the heart of something ancient and dying. Above, branches curled inward like claws, veined with violet sap. Fungal growths blinked along the trunks, glowing with a pale, pulsing blue light—like breath.
This place was alive. It watched. It remembered.
And I was not supposed to be here.
My limbs trembled—not with fear, but with disorientation. This body was new. Unclaimed. Not mine. Not yet. And yet, something stirred within it. Not a thought. A presence. A memory.
Hers.
She had followed me through every death. Across lifetimes, across time—unchanged. And I, again and again, had forgotten her. Until the last.
She gave me something death could never steal.
Sinuestra.
Not a word. Not a name. A vow. A scar. A key.
And now I breathe. Not as who I was. But as what I must become.