The weight of existence pressed differently now. It wasn't emptiness that greeted me, but expectation—an invisible current threading through the fragments, tugging, questioning. Layers of echoes hovered, restless, as if the universe itself leaned closer, watching me struggle to cradle one small thread of memory against the tide.
Then I felt it—another consciousness. Not reaching, not offering, only observing. Patient. Deliberate. Somewhere deep in the folds of time and space, it lingered, and I understood, without understanding how, that it had been watching me from the very beginning.
The fragments around me quivered nervously. Memories twisted and collided, some dissolving entirely, leaving faint traces—half-lives, half-whispers, half-forgotten songs of existence. One fragment lingered longer than it should—a child laughing in a garden I remembered from Volume 1, now shadowed by unease, almost aware of my gaze.
I paused, feeling the weight of infinite possibilities pressing against my consciousness. To answer would be to define myself, but even my understanding trembled. The presence shifted, a ripple through every layer I had touched, and I felt, with a certainty that startled me, that my choices here could echo across more worlds than I would ever see.
Then I moved—not forward, not backward, but into the space between, letting the threads of memory guide me where thought alone could not.
Whispers followed me—some melodic, like long-forgotten songs, others jagged, accusing, questioning. I realized the memory I carried was no longer mine alone. Every fragment had its voice, its subtle claim, its insistence on being heard. And somewhere behind them all, the presence waited, silent yet thunderous, gauging, calculating, patient beyond comprehension.
It would not speak again yet. Its silence roared louder than any shout. And I understood immediately: the journey had begun anew.