Sleep came unbidden, unceremonious, and without invitation. Asoka lay upon her bed not with prayer or reflection, but with the simple closing of her eyes. The day had drained her, though its exhaustion was of a quiet sort—muscle and mind alike heavy, pliant, as if the body itself had decided to surrender.
Yet rest, when it came, was not gentle.
She found herself standing, though she could not remember rising. The ground beneath her was smooth, pale, as though time itself had shaped it and left it untouched by hand. There was no sky above her, no sun, no stars. Light existed, even, yet it had no source. It rested upon everything evenly, neither warm nor cold, neither kind nor cruel.
She did not panic. She had not yet learned to fear such places. The emptiness seemed to expect her presence, as if it had always been waiting.
"Asoka."
The voice was neither near nor distant. It was simply there, spoken once, clearly, then gone.
She turned, directionless, as though movement itself were a choice not hers but something else's to grant. Before her stood a figure—or the suggestion of one. Its shape wavered, impossible to define. Sometimes it stretched tall, smoke-like, dissolving into the pale light; other times it shrank, a shadow without body, yet its presence pressed upon her with weight.
"You have been called," it said, voice neither warm nor cruel. "And yet, you did not hear."
Words rose in her throat slowly, each syllable deliberate. "I do not recall," she said.
"Recall is not the same as never having known."
It raised a hand—or what seemed a hand—and the pale ground shifted beneath her feet. Lines appeared, spreading outward in careful arcs. They formed patterns, intricate yet alien, some echoing symbols she had glimpsed in old forest stones, others utterly unfamiliar.
"Look," it said.
She obeyed. At the center of the markings lay a ring of dark, broken metal, its ends turned outward as though forced apart. Faint etchings marred its surface, worn thin by time or intent. She bent closer, drawn to it, though she did not touch.
"It remains," the figure said, "and it waits to be mended."
"Mended… of what?" she asked.
"That depends," the figure replied, "upon where you stand."
The ground shifted again, replacing the markings with hazy images that rose like mist and settled into fleeting clarity. She saw the village—not as it was now, but as it had been long ago. Houses clustered closer, smaller, rough-hewn and protective. At the center, a circle of stones rose taller than a man, surfaces etched with markings similar to those she had just seen. People moved among them, voices low, heads bowed.
The image blurred and reformed. Stones toppled, some dragged away, some buried. In their place stood timber and stone structures, imposing, unfamiliar. Bells hung where carvings once had been. People remained, though quieter now, more constrained, their movements measured.
"Why show me this?" she asked.
The figure said nothing at first. Then, softly: "Because you walk upon both, and yet belong fully to neither."
The air pressed closer. Her chest tightened. Images faded, leaving only the pale, unshaped ground and the shifting figure.
"Some you remember most closely," it continued, voice low, "are not always what they seem."
Her breath caught. She remembered nothing clearly of a sister, and yet… she could not ignore the ache that followed the thought. "I remember little of her," she said.
"That is not by chance," the figure replied.
It did not elaborate. Instead, it lifted its hand again, and the ground peeled back in layers, like pages turned by an unseen reader. Beneath, darkness, deep and endless, stretched beyond her vision. From within came the faintest sound of water flowing over stone, measured, relentless.
"You have wondered," the figure said, "why memory abandons some paths and not others."
Asoka remained silent.
"Not all forgetting is loss," it continued. "Some is keeping."
"For whom?" she whispered.
"For you," it said, "and for those who would not yet see you remember."
Shapes moved within the darkness below, suggestions of faces, hands, forms that did not fully emerge. They did not reach for her, yet their gaze was palpable, a weight upon her back she could not shake.
"Am I in danger?" she asked, though her voice felt small in the vast emptiness.
"You have always been within reach of it," the figure said. "As all are who stand where you do."
"And where is that?"
"Between what is permitted," it replied, "and what endures regardless."
The darkness closed like a slow exhale. The pale ground returned, smooth once more. The broken ring lay at her feet again, inert yet expectant.
"Will I see you again?" she asked.
"That is not mine to decide," the figure replied.
A sudden weight pressed upon her chest. Breath came in shallow bursts. "Then why come to me now?" she asked.
The figure stepped back, for the first time allowing space. "Because the season turns," it said. "And what has slept grows restless."
Light dimmed subtly. The surface of the pale ground softened, losing detail, shifting as though it, too, had memories it could not hold.
"Asoka," the voice whispered once more, quieter now, "attend not only to who speaks, but to who is forbidden to listen."
The figure dissolved, form thinning to shadow, then nothing.
And though darkness followed, she felt it differently now—as if it had a purpose, a pattern, a plan. Something was stirring beyond sight, beyond memory, beyond what she had ever known. She woke with a sudden shiver, the weight of unseen eyes heavy upon her, and the sense that the story of her life had already begun to bend in directions she could not yet see.