The silence that followed wasn't peace—it was *absence*. No birdsong. No wind. No thought.
Ren lay on his back, eyes wide, body slack. Above him, the sky bled a deep orange, distant stars blinking like dying embers. His heartbeat returned first, thudding unevenly in his chest like a drum struck by a dying hand.
His limbs twitched. He sat up slowly, feeling the ache—not of muscle, but of something deeper. A tight pull in his core where the memory had been scorched away. Another fragment burned. Another lie turned truth.
"You're still here." The words echoed from nowhere, but they were his. Not a thought. A *presence*.
He glanced around, but the canyon was empty—just rocks and wind-whittled bones of some forgotten beast.
No. Not empty.
Across from him, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, was a figure. No face. No skin. Just a shimmer, like memory refusing to form. It blinked in and out of sight, as though it wasn't allowed to exist fully.
"What are you?" Ren's voice cracked.
The shimmer tilted its head. When it spoke, it sounded like his voice layered with another—older, dry and raw like parchment lit on fire.
"You cut deeper than most."
Ren stiffened. "Are you part of the system?"
"System. Shard. Echo. I've had names. Most just call me... Hollow."
The figure flickered again, clearer this time. Ren could see symbols etched across its limbs—fractured runes, like someone had tried to carve commandments into breaking glass.
Ren stood. Wobbled. "Why are you showing up now?"
"Because your soul finally screamed loud enough to be heard."
He almost laughed. Almost. "That's poetic. And unhelpful."
Hollow—or whatever it was—rose without motion, like the air itself decided to stand. "You are not the first. You will not be the last. But you may be the only one who still questions what burns inside you."
Ren looked down at his hand, the veins beneath the skin faintly glowing with residual soul-ember. "Then tell me something useful."
"Go to the Archive of Lost Breath. South. Beyond the Scorchline. It remembers what even gods tried to forget."
"The Archive is a myth."
"So were you."
The shimmer stepped back—and vanished.
Wind returned. Cold and sharp. Ren shivered, alone again.
He didn't know how long he stood there, the dust settling around him like ash. Something inside him had changed—again. The burn had taken more than a memory. It had opened something. A channel, maybe. A wound.
The system's voice returned like a cold whisper:
> \[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 18.4%]
> \[SOUL STABILITY: FRAGILE]
> \[NEW SOUL PATH DISCOVERED: MEMORY RELIC – ARCHIVE OF LOST BREATH]
> \[WARNING: BURN THRESHOLD APPROACHING. DANGER OF PERMANENT LOSS: HIGH]
Ren clenched his fist.
He had no map. No guide. No idea where "Scorchline" even began.
But for the first time since waking with that mark on his palm, he had *direction*. He had *a place*.
The echoes of Hollow's voice clung to him like smoke.
"It remembers what even gods tried to forget."
Something told him the Archive held more than ancient words. If the royals feared it—and if Hollow guarded it—it might hold fragments of why the world fell. What Project Echoborn was. Maybe even who he really was before the soul-burn.
A low rumble sounded behind him. He turned sharply.
From the ridge, a figure stumbled down. Worn cloak, glowing eye-runes across one arm. A scavenger, maybe. Or worse.
Ren moved into a crouch. His instincts were faster than his thoughts now—burned into him through necessity and fire.
The figure paused halfway, raising empty hands. "Didn't mean to spy. Just saw the fire… and, well, you."
Their voice cracked, hoarse with thirst. Ren didn't lower his guard.
"I've seen others like you," they continued. "Ones who burn to remember. You're not the first."
Ren's stomach tightened.
"How many?"
The stranger scratched at their ruined cloak. "Six. Maybe seven. Never twice the same. All headed south."
Ren's next words tasted like rust. "Did they make it?"
The stranger didn't answer. Just looked away.
Ren straightened slowly, already knowing what he had to do. The Archive. The Scorchline. The truth buried beneath centuries of ash.
He turned toward the setting sun, toward where Hollow had pointed.
The journey ahead might kill him. But staying still meant death for sure.
Time to move.