When consciousness returned, it did not come with sound, or sight, or even thought.
It came with weight.
Not the kind gravity gives — this was the heaviness of existing again after being erased.
The void around him shimmered faintly, like black water reflecting distant stars, though there were no stars left to reflect. Every point of light he saw was code — dying fragments of realities swallowed by the same Sea that now held him.
He drifted. Or perhaps the world drifted around him.
There was no up or down, no horizon — only the slow undulation of an endless, liquid darkness that moved like thought, like breath, like memory dreaming itself.
> [Location: OBSIDIAN SEA — Depth Unmeasured]
[Consciousness Stability: Variable]
[Physical Form: Undefined]
Aiden exhaled, though breath was no longer necessary.
The sound rippled outward, and the Sea responded.
It pulsed once, then again — not in hostility, but in recognition.
