In a forgotten corner of the universe—so far from any star that even light dared not linger—a door stood alone.
No path led to it.
No walls framed it.
Just a monolithic arch of obsidian and bone, floating in the dark, bound by colossal chains that shimmered with dormant energy.
Behind it, a faint light pulsed. Soft at first. Then brighter.
A voice echoed—genderless, ageless—as if the very light remembered how to speak.
"They think it was buried. That the seal cannot crack."
The chains shifted.
One trembled.
"They forget... all things sealed still remember what they once were."
The glow behind the door throbbed like a heartbeat—now rhythmic, now uncertain.
"It won't be long now."
A gust of dustless wind stirred the void.
From nowhere, a book appeared—floating, ancient, bound in an alien leather that moved like it was breathing.
Runes, unreadable to any Earthly tongue, shimmered along its spine—pulsing to the same beat as the sealed light.
The book opened.
Pages turned on their own, each yellowed sheet inscribed with shifting ink.
One page halted mid-flutter, revealing a sketch.
A single figure.
A boy.
Thin. Gaunt. Eyes clouded not with ignorance, but silence.
He stood facing something unseen—a void or door, perhaps—his right hand partially outstretched.
A symbol marked his palm, half-formed, unfinished.
His name was not written.
But beneath the sketch, the ink moved—like it resisted being read—forming lines that wrote themselves:
"He who carries the Echo.
He who was born from the silence between stars.
The Seal is within him."
More pages flipped—eager, desperate—revealing symbols of wars, falling gods, constellations tearing apart.
But then came static.
A stutter in the ink.
The book shivered.
The voice behind the door returned, softer now—almost pitying.
"He won't be ready.
Not before the Rift."
One final page turned.
There, in trembling ink, the word Cosmic— was halfway written before everything halted.
The page warped.
The runes bled red.
The book convulsed mid-air, twisting as if caught in an invisible struggle.
Then—
A crackling noise.
Like time snapping.
And darkness consumed the page.
[End of Prologue]