Chapter One – The Sound of Emptiness
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There was no light.
Not absence of light—just… something different. A stillness that made even the dark seem loud.
In that place, where time did not tick and space did not stretch, something opened its eyes.
Not with vision.
With awareness.
> "Who am I?"
No answer.
> "What am I?"
The question echoed, not in air—but in meaning.
The being—yet unnamed—felt emptiness, not like a void to be filled, but as its own essence. It didn't suffer from it. It was it.
And then…
A sound.
Not a voice, but more like the first breath after drowning.
> "You are not supposed to exist… yet you do."
"You are the flaw, the glitch, the... remainder."
The being felt a tug—as if the concept of "somewhere else" had just been invented.
And it fell.
Through silence. Through concept. Through layers of existence it could not name.
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It woke up gasping.
The air burned its lungs, light stabbed its eyes, sounds were too sharp, too raw.
It was lying on something hard—concrete, maybe. There were walls, buildings, humans walking past.
A world. Loud. Real.
And for the first time, the being felt pain. And weakness.
Not as enemies. But as companions.
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It did not know its name.
But this world would give it one.
Farro.