The forest was silent. Too silent.
No birds, no wind — only the slow breath of fog curling around dead trees. The earth was cold and cracked, its scent heavy with rain that never fell.
The world looked alive, but it wasn't. It was holding its breath — waiting.
Somewhere within that silence, Cain Thalric opened his eyes.
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A man rose from the ground as though the earth itself had given him back.
Dust clung to his clothes, and for a moment, he simply stood there—motionless, silent, breathing like it was something newly learned. His long white hair drifted across his face in the faint wind, his features calm yet unnervingly empty.
He looked around, confusion flickering in his eyes. The world before him was strange, unfamiliar, and vast. He didn't know where he was… or who he had been.
Only a name echoed faintly in his mind — Cain.
Nothing else.
He sank back to the cold ground, staring into the distance as if the answer might come walking out of the fog. But nothing did.
So he waited — for what, he didn't know.
For a memory.
For a voice.
For something to tell him he existed at all.