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> "Some places burn so deeply into your soul…
that even rain can't put out the fire."
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🌧️ Scene 1 — Return to Ember Hollow
The carriage stopped at the edge of the forest.
No driver. No roads. Just memory.
Aric stepped out, Cassia behind him, Myles quiet.
Before them: a field of blackened bones and stone.
Ember Hollow.
His birthplace. His grave.
The village no map marked anymore.
Only the crows remembered.
The rain began to fall—soft, like a warning.
> "We shouldn't be here," Myles muttered.
Aric whispered, "I have to see it."
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🏚️ Scene 2 — The Burned House
They found the old path, now overgrown.
Half-collapsed huts. A dried-up well. The scent of charcoal still hung in the air after ten years.
Aric led them to a ruined house at the hill's base.
"Mine," he said. "Before it all."
He stepped inside.
The roof was gone.
A single rusted bedframe remained… and carved into the floor beneath it, a sigil:
V.O.X.
Fresh. Not old.
Cassia gasped. "This was here before the Academy?"
"No," Aric said, voice shaking.
"It was left after I died."
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🧠Scene 3 — The Letter in the Ash
Under the floorboard, he found a sealed envelope, untouched by flame.
His name written on the front—in a hand he hadn't seen in years:
"Aric."
It was his mother's handwriting.
He opened it with trembling fingers:
> "If you're reading this, you've returned.
I always knew you would.
They took you for their god, my son. But you were never theirs.
The Voice chose you… because it remembered what they did to me."
> "Go to the Hollow Tree.
Burn the roots.
And listen."
Aric dropped to his knees.
> "They hurt her too," he murmured.
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🌳 Scene 4 — The Hollow Tree
They reached the tree after dusk.
It stood alone in a clearing, leafless, bark scarred with claw marks.
Aric lit a flame with a whisper. "This fire's mine. Not Vox's."
He pressed it to the roots.
They flared—not orange, but violet.
A howl echoed through the woods. The tree split open.
Inside: a spiral staircase carved in black stone.
Myles stared. "That goes… down?"
Aric nodded.
> "To where the first Voice was born."
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🕳️ Scene 5 — Descent into the Vault
They descended.
Each step pulsed with memories:
Aric's childhood laughter.
Screams.
His own death.
Lena's voice: "He's ready."
Vox whispering: "They made you perfect."
At the bottom, a vault door awaited—sealed by three locks:
1. Pain.
2. Flame.
3. Name.
Aric closed his eyes.
> "I am Aric Vale." — The first lock clicked.
"I was burned alive." — The second flared open.
"And I remember it all." — The third exploded in starlight.
The vault opened.
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🌀 Scene 6 — The Chamber of Echoes
Inside: an ancient room.
Walls of crystal. A pool of black liquid at the center.
And a corpse — floating above the pool.
Not human. Not demon.
Its chest branded with V.O.X.
But its face… mirrored Aric's.
Cassia fell back. "That's—"
Aric approached.
A sigil on the corpse's forehead glowed.
He touched it.
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🔮 Scene 7 — The Truth Revealed
A vision took him:
> A world before time.
A race of star-born beings called the Echo-Makers.
Vox was one of them — a god of memory and vengeance.
But it disobeyed.
It gave power to mortals.
It was cast down… and its soul fractured.
One fragment landed in Ember Hollow.
Inside a dying pregnant woman.
Aric's mother.
> "She carried Vox unknowingly.
And gave birth to me.
I was never just a boy.
I was the echo of a god's defiance."
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📓 Scene 8 — Notebook Update
Later that night, outside the tree, Aric wrote:
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"Phase 10: The Origin Echoes"
Vox fragment discovered
I am not the vessel.
I am the seed.
Lena didn't choose me. The cosmos did.
> "I didn't survive death.
I was death's mistake."
"Now I know what I am.
And I decide what I'll become."
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