1
Ryn woke before dawn.
The planet was quiet, though "quiet" on Oris meant a million soft sounds woven together—waves breathing against cliffs, the low thrum of roots deep in the soil, and, beneath it all, a pulse that matched her heartbeat.
She pressed her hand to the floor of her cabin. "Still with me?"
Always, Oris answered inside her mind. You dreamed again.
"I saw light beneath the ocean. It felt like… memories."
A fragment of me, he said. Something ancient stirs below the western trench. Would you see it?
"Of course."
---
2
By midday, Ryn and her team had landed near the western sea.
The air shimmered with mist, tinted green by the algae-sky that hung above the water. Liora Prime III waited for them, half-visible, her luminous form reflecting the waves.
"You may descend," Liora said. "Oris has opened a path. Follow the light."
They stepped into a small submersible and drifted downward through water so clear it felt like glass. Bioluminescent creatures moved in slow spirals around them, glowing in patterns that pulsed like language.
"Is that… writing?" Kael whispered.
Liora nodded. "Memory. Oris's earliest layers. He remembers his birth here."
---
3
As they descended, the water grew warmer, the light brighter. At the bottom, they saw it—a vast fissure glowing with golden veins. Each pulse matched the rhythm of Oris's heartbeat.
Ryn touched the viewport. "What are we seeing?"
My core, Oris said. The place where I first woke. There are memories locked here—images from a life before planets, before form.
Ryn felt a pressure in her chest, then flashes: a city of glass towers, the roar of wind through steel, a human hand reaching toward a sky filled with fire. Then silence.
She gasped. "That… that was you, wasn't it? Before all this?"
Yes. I lived once as you do. Then I died. The universe gave me back as itself.
---
4
When they resurfaced, the evening light was orange and soft.
Ryn stood at the shoreline, staring at her reflection on the water.
"So you remember being human," she said quietly.
Not all. Only fragments. The purpose remains hidden.
She sighed. "And you think it's down there, in the core?"
Perhaps. Or in the stars that watch us. The reincarnator must discover why the cycle began.
Ryn smiled faintly. "Then we'll keep looking."
We, Oris echoed. I like that.
---
5
That night, the team set up camp near the ocean. The sky was alive with constellations Oris had shaped into spirals and flowers. Each star blinked in rhythm with his pulse.
Kael sat by the fire. "You realize we're helping a planet remember who he used to be?"
Ryn chuckled. "I've stopped trying to define it. I just listen."
Liora approached, her form flickering like starlight. "Listening is creation's first act," she said softly. "Even Oris needed to listen before he could speak."
Ryn gazed at the horizon. "Then maybe that's what reincarnation really is—listening to the universe until it answers back."
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6
Later, alone by the sea, she heard Oris's voice again—quieter than a whisper, carried on the wind.
Ryn, if I was once human, then every human carries a spark of what I am. When you walk upon me, it is not you observing me; it is me remembering myself.
She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth under her feet. "Then maybe that's why you trust us."
Yes. You are the echo of what I was.
---
7
At dawn, the planet trembled slightly—not in danger, but awakening.
New islands began to rise far out at sea, glimmering with molten gold. The formation was slow, deliberate, almost like breathing.
Kael ran to her side. "He's creating again."
Ryn nodded, eyes on the horizon. "No. He's remembering."
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To be continued.