Darkness.
Not the kind that comes from closing your eyes, nor the deep void between stars—this was absence. A place where light had never existed, where thought drifted without a body to hold it.
Emery was here. Or perhaps she was this place. A presence in a formless void, floating in the unknown.
She didn’t remember how she got here. There was a sense of before, something distant and unreachable, like trying to recall a dream that had already slipped away. If she focused too hard, the memory seemed to shatter into nothing.
She should be afraid. Shouldn’t she?
But fear required a body—lungs to breathe, a heart to pound. She had none of those things here. Only thoughts.
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And then, something moved.
A presence. No, not a presence—an awareness. It wasn’t human, wasn’t anything she could define, but it was vast. Enormous. And it was looking at her.
A whisper brushed against her mind, not a voice, but something deeper.
(Processing…)
(Entity detected: Human.)
(Eligibility for Rebirth: Confirmed.)
Rebirth? The word cracked through the void like a chime, sending ripples through her scattered thoughts. What did that mean? Had she… died?
That should terrify her, but she still had no heart to race, no hands to tremble. Just thoughts, floating in the dark.
The presence continued.
(A System has been assigned. Adjusting parameters…)
Something shifted. It wasn’t sight, but an awareness of movement. A thread of something ran through her, threading her together, shaping her into—
Pain.
A terrible, overwhelming ache, not just in a body she couldn’t yet feel, but something deeper, something pulling her into existence. She was being formed, dragged from nothing into something, and it hurt in ways she couldn’t explain.
She wanted to scream, but she had no mouth.
Wanted to thrash, but had no limbs.
Her thoughts dissolved into static as the world pulled her into being.
Then—
(Rebirth Complete.)
And Emery Vail was born again.
