Silence.

That’s the first thing you notice — a silence so deep it hums in your ears. The air is cold, heavy with dust and the faint scent of burned stone. When your eyes flutter open, you see only darkness broken by thin, trembling lines of light that trace across the floor — ancient runes, fading like dying embers.

You lie upon cold marble. Cracks spider through it, and fragments of a shattered circle surround you. For a long moment, you simply breathe, trying to remember how you got here… but there’s nothing. No dream. No memory. Just the echo of something vast, pulling you across a gulf you cannot name.

Your fingers brush against the ground — it feels wrong, like it hums faintly beneath your skin. When you push yourself upright, your body feels heavier than it should, yet alive in a strange, vibrant way. The air itself seems to shimmer, whispering faint sounds just beyond understanding.

Around you rise the remnants of a grand hall. Pillars lie toppled, carved with runes half-erased by time. The ceiling has long since collapsed, leaving a gaping wound that reveals a sky unlike any you’ve ever seen — a twilight expanse painted in violet clouds and silver constellations that do not belong to Earth.

Wind sighs through the ruins, stirring ash and fragments of long-dead banners. Somewhere distant, thunder rolls — but it feels alive, as if the world itself is breathing.

You take a slow step forward, your footsteps echoing against the stone. Each sound feels amplified, too sharp, too real. You can sense the weight of the place, as though it remembers the ritual that once burned here — the final spark that tore you from your world and delivered you into this one.

And in that quiet, standing amidst the ruins of a forgotten age, one truth settles in your chest like cold fire:

You do not belong here.

Yet something — or someone — wanted you here.