In the beginning, there was only life.
The people of the world were countless as grains of sand. Children were born in every home, filling the villages, swelling the cities, spilling into the fields until the land itself groaned beneath their weight.
The gods watched, and they despaired.
For every child born, another demanded food. For every city built, another forest fell. War raged endlessly, as nations fought for space, for crops, for air itself. The world screamed, and no one listened.
So the gods descended.
From the heavens they cast chains of light across the earth. Every soul was bound, shackled, woven into a great wheel that turned and turned without end. And thus the Law was made:
No birth without death. No life without loss. The living shall only rise when another falls.
The people called it mercy.
The gods called it balance.
And from that day, the Cycle began.
Centuries passed. Empires crumbled, and new ones rose. The wheel turned, steady and merciless. Births and deaths balanced perfectly. There were no more surges, no more endless floods of humanity.
But with order came chains.
The child born today was not new. They were old. Every boy and girl carried the weight of countless lives, their past selves whispering in their veins, their destinies guided by choices made long before they drew their first breath.
For some, it was a blessing. Kings were reborn as kings. Healers were reborn as healers. Lineages preserved themselves, eternal and unbroken.
For others, it was a curse. The poor died poor, only to be born poor again. Sins carried across centuries. Whole families shackled by lives they never chose.
And in time, the Cycle bred its own sickness. Too many lives crowded into one soul, too many voices clawing for control. A new affliction spread — Paradox — leaving the unlucky to wither in madness, trapped in endless loops of memory.
The priests told the people it was divine will. That the Cycle was flawless. That freedom lay in obedience.
And so the people prayed, and obeyed, and lived their borrowed lives.
Yet in secret, whispers grew.
Of a man who had once severed himself from the Cycle, escaping the chains of rebirth. A magician whose soul wandered in silence, waiting for a new vessel. Waiting for the impossible — a child with no past, a soul unbound.
An empty vessel.
An anomaly.
And though no one believed the tale, the gods stirred uneasily.
For the wheel had never once faltered.
And should it break—
The world itself might break with it.