The world ended in silence.
Not with the roar of cannons or the wail of a dying sun, but with a sigh—a collective forgetting that unraveled reality thread by thread.
Cities dissolved into mist, their spires crumbling into memories no one could hold.
Gods wept in dreams and faded when the last believer closed their eyes.
Now, only the Fracture remains: a patchwork of broken lands stitched together by what humanity dares to remember.
---
In the shadow of a ruined monastery, where statues of forgotten faces stared blankly into the void, a boy awoke.
He had no name.
The brand on his wrist—a spiraling sigil of erased lines—told him that much.
They called him Null, a word as empty as the hollows where his past should have been.
His breath rasped in the cold air, a sound too loud against the stillness.
Around him, the statues loomed, their stone eyes glinting with something like recognition—or hunger.
Null's hands trembled as he pushed himself up, the rough granite biting into his palms.
The monastery's walls were cracked, etched with symbols he couldn't read but felt in his bones.
A flicker of memory danced at the edge of his mind—a woman's voice, soft and urgent, whispering a code he couldn't grasp.
Then it was gone, swallowed by the void that lived inside him.
He stood, brushing dust from his tattered cloak.
The Fracture stretched beyond the monastery's broken arches: a landscape of jagged cliffs and shifting skies, where the horizon flickered like a dying flame.
Somewhere, a bell tolled—a sound that didn't belong.
Null's head throbbed.
The brand on his wrist burned.
---
"You are not real," a voice murmured, low and resonant, threading through the wind.
Null froze.
He turned, searching the shadows, but the statues remained silent, their gazes fixed on nothing.
"But you are the only one who remembers me."
His heart stuttered.
The voice wasn't outside—it came from within, an echo bouncing off the walls of his skull.
He pressed a hand to his temple, willing it to stop, but the words coiled deeper, wrapping around a fragment of something buried.
A dream.
A code.
A truth.
---
Before he could unravel it, the ground trembled.
The statues' eyes glowed, faint and amber, and the air thickened with a scent like burnt parchment.
Null stumbled back as the largest statue—a cloaked figure with a shattered face—cracked open.
From its chest spilled a shard of light, pulsing like a heartbeat.
An Echo Fragment.
Instinct drove him forward.
He reached out, and the shard dissolved into his skin, sinking into the brand.
Pain lanced through him, sharp and electric, followed by a flood of images:
A city of glass towers,
A woman with eyes like storm clouds,
A chant in a language that twisted his tongue.
Then, a prophecy, clear as a blade:
> "The Echo Vessel will descend, where forgotten laws lie buried.
Three keys will unlock the Sanctum, but the fourth will break the world.
Remember, or all will fade."
---
Null gasped, collapsing to his knees.
The images faded, leaving a hollow ache.
The voice returned, softer now, almost tender.
"You've begun. Don't stop."
---
He didn't know how long he sat there, the shard's warmth fading from his wrist.
When he finally stood, the monastery was silent again, the statues' glow extinguished.
But something had changed.
The air hummed with a new weight, and his mind buzzed with half-formed thoughts—memories that weren't his.
He needed answers.
The Fracture offered none,
but the dream might.
---
Null closed his eyes, focusing on the brand, and let himself fall.
---
The descent was a spiral of color and chaos.
Reality unraveled into threads—reds bleeding into blacks, voices overlapping in a cacophony of forgotten tongues.
Null's body dissolved, then reformed,
his feet touching ground that wasn't ground.
He stood in a vast chamber,
its walls alive with shifting runes.
The Sanctum Layer.
---
The air here was thick, heavy with the scent of rain and ash.
Statues lined the walls, but these were different—intact, their faces serene yet accusing.
At the chamber's center floated a pedestal, atop which rested a crystalline orb.
Inside, a figure moved—a woman, her form glitching like a broken memory.
---
"You've come," she said, her voice echoing the one from the monastery.
Her eyes locked onto his, stormy and infinite.
"I am Elyra, a keeper of the lost. And you… you are the key."
---
Null's throat tightened.
"I don't understand. What am I? Why can't I remember?"
Elyra's form flickered, her smile bittersweet.
"Your memory was sealed to protect the Code—the laws that bind this world.
But the seal is breaking.
The Echo Fragments will restore you, piece by piece.
Each one carries a truth, a power, a curse."
---
She gestured to the orb.
"Take this. It's the first Law Node: What is denied by memory cannot kill.
Use it wisely."
---
Null hesitated, the brand pulsing in response.
He reached out, and the orb shattered, its light flooding into him.
Knowledge bloomed—runes, chants, a sigil forming in his mind.
Sigil of Doubt.
He could erase an enemy's certainty, turn their attack into nothing.
The power thrilled him, but it came with a weight:
A memory not his own.
---
A man's voice, desperate, pleading.
"Don't forget me, Elyra!"
Then silence.
A death.
Null's chest tightened, tears pricking his eyes.
Whose pain was this?
---
"You feel it," Elyra said, her voice softening.
"The Echo Fragments carry the souls of the forgotten.
You'll carry their burdens, their strengths.
But beware—the more you remember, the less you'll be yourself."
---
Before he could respond, the chamber shuddered.
Shadows coalesced at the edges, forming cloaked figures with hollow eyes.
The Scriptorium.
Their leader stepped forward, a woman with a quill dripping ink that stained the air.
---
"The Echo Vessel," she hissed.
"Your existence is a flaw. We will rewrite you."
---
Null's instincts screamed.
He raised his hand, tracing the Sigil of Doubt in the air.
The leader's strike—a blade of shadow—faltered, dissolving as if it had never been.
The Scriptorium recoiled,
but their numbers grew,
their chants rising like a storm.
---
"Run!" Elyra shouted, her form fading.
"The Sanctum Layers will protect you. Find the next Fragment!"
---
Null turned, fleeing through a rift that opened in the wall.
The chamber dissolved behind him,
the Scriptorium's wails echoing in his ears.
---
He landed hard on stone, the Fracture's jagged cliffs reappearing around him.
The monastery loomed ahead,
but it felt different—older, its statues now weeping black tears.
He clutched his wrist, the brand glowing faintly.
The voice returned, a whisper against his soul.
> "Two Layers remain. Two keys to find.
The third will test you."
---
Null's breath hitched.
The prophecy echoed in his mind:
> Three keys will unlock the Sanctum,
but the fourth will break the world.
Was he saving reality—or dooming it?
---
He didn't know.
But he couldn't stop.
Not now.
Not with the weight of forgotten gods pressing against his skull,
their voices merging with his own.
---
He took a step toward the monastery,
the wind carrying a new sound—
a hymn, broken and beautiful,
sung by something that shouldn't exist.
The Hollow Choir had found him.