### **1**
The morning that followed was unlike any Adam had ever known. When he opened his eyes in Zera's cabin, light seeped through the cracked window—but it seemed *hesitant*, as if afraid to touch his face.
He sat up on the couch to find Zera already outside, leaving behind a cup of blue steam-twisted brew. Before drinking, he caught his reflection in the liquid. Something in his features had shifted. No longer the lost boy, but someone sharper—eyes more alert, a forehead lined with centuries of grief and understanding.
He followed Zera's trail into the woods behind the cabin, where she stood in a ring of glowing stones, eyes shut, her right hand trembling over his grandmother's open journal. Without looking, she whispered:
*"The Falling Cloud approaches, Adam. It doesn't rain… it steals memory."*
He stepped closer. *"What is the Falling Cloud?"*
Her eyes opened slowly, reflecting terror and revelation:
*"A creature. Your grandmother feared it more than the Shadow Made Flesh. It doesn't harm the body—it devours remembrance… piece by piece, until you're just a walking husk. No past. No purpose."*
Adam's voice turned brittle. *"Did it… touch her?"*
Zera nodded. *"During the Great Storm, when she lost a full day. She wrote of it on Page 73. Read it."*
But when he returned to the cabin and flipped to the page, he found only a single line repeated like a curse:
**"I am not me, I am not me, I am not..."**
Dizziness struck him—until he spotted faint ink beneath the page. Rubbing the blue brew over it, hidden words surfaced:
**"The Falling Cloud isn't smoke. It's an entity that crosses worlds when the barrier cracks. It doesn't chase memories… it digests them. See its face, and you'll forget your own name."**
Adam's hands shook. Something heavy loomed behind him—
He whirled around.
Nothing.
Yet the wind howled like a warning.
---
### **2**
Zera was sealing the glowing stones when he returned. *"Adam, the Cloud has already descended on 'Nomeria Plain.' We must go. Someone there claims to know you… but can't remember how."*
As they prepared to leave, Adam glanced back at the cabin. Something—*some part of himself*—would remain trapped in its walls forever.
On the path to Nomeria, Zera asked abruptly:
*"Have you ever forgotten someone you loved… without realizing you forgot them?"*
Adam's voice frayed. *"I think… I forgot my father. I can't see his face. Just this… hollow ache."*
Zera studied him. *"The Cloud may have done that. Or perhaps… your grandmother was protecting you from something worse."*
---
### **3**
They reached the plain at dusk. The fog here wasn't white, but a poison-gray smoke that clawed into their lungs.
At its center stood a lone tree—and beneath it, a thin man with his back turned. When they neared, he rotated slowly. His eyes flickered with a panic Adam recognized instantly.
*"Are you… Adam?"* the man rasped. *"I think I knew you. But I don't remember why."*
Adam stepped closer—and froze.
The man had his eyes.
---
### **Cliffhanger & Questions:**
- **Who is this doppelgänger?**
- **Has the Cloud already begun erasing Adam?**
- **What did the grandmother hide in this plain?**
> *✦ "Sometimes, we forget not from pain… but because something *stole* that pain from us."*
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