On the first dawn of the Solar Calendar, I awoke in an alien land—surrounded by strangers of every hue, shape, and shadow.
Beneath me, the earth lay cold and coarse. Above, the sky watched us, pitiless and silent.
As consciousness seeped back, I found myself clutching the hand of a woman I did not know. Yet… a whisper in my bones insisted I did.
That sensation—strange, aching—like a half-remembered dream lost in a labyrinth of haze. But there was no time to unravel her mystery.
Chaos reigned. Souls scattered like shards of glass. Faces frozen in shock. Bodies drifting aimlessly. Voices clashed:
"Who am I?"
"Who are you?"
"Where are we?"
No answers came. Only the hollow echo of stolen memories.
Minutes bled into eternity.
Slowly, the fog in my mind thinned—just as the unknown woman turned to me. Fear pooled in her eyes.
"What is happening? Who are you? Why do you hold my hand?"
I opened my mouth to speak—
Nothing.
No name. No past. No truth.
"I… know nothing," I whispered.
Her gaze pierced me—suspicion? Recognition? As if my face were a ghost from a life she'd buried.
And then—
A voice like cracking bedrock thundered from the mountain's heart:
"You stand in a land unborn to your memory. You came here by your own forsaken choices.
Three tasks bind your fate:
Find your names.
Find your sustenance.
Build your sanctuary.
Fail… and you shall not see the next sun."
Silence fell, thick and suffocating—as if time itself had ceased to breathe.
I looked around. Strangers had drawn into a wide, trembling circle, staring at the mountain's peak where the voice had birthed itself.
Terror hung in the air—but in some eyes… an ember sparked to life.