The world did not breathe that night. The stars above were veiled, shrouded by a curtain of ash that dimmed their light into pale ghosts. Je walked alone, but the silence was not empty. It pressed against him, alive with something unseen.
Every step echoed louder than it should have, as if the ground itself remembered him.
> [System Notice: Presence Detected.]
He froze. Not a shadow, not a form—only voices, faint and brittle, riding the ash-filled air. They were not in any tongue he knew, yet he understood. Words that crawled into his bones, heavy with forgotten weight.
"He comes."
"He devours."
"But the ash remembers what even hunger cannot consume."
The System flickered. No quests appeared. No commands. Only silence—an emptiness that felt like a held breath.
Then, without warning, the sky cracked. Not light. Not fire. A single fracture of soundless void splitting across the heavens. Je's heart hammered as he stared upward, feeling something stare back.
The fracture sealed itself. The voices faded. But Je knew the truth.
The world itself was beginning to remember.
And memory was more dangerous than any enemy.
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