Three weeks after the Deepening fell asleep, the dreams began.
Not nightmares. Not silver fire. Something quieter. Elara dreamed of roots growing through stone, of water finding cracks in a dam, of pressure building beneath a mountain. The void inside her recognized the sensation.
Something is moving, the void said.
"The Deepening?"
No. Something the Deepening was holding down.
Elara woke with a gasp.
---
Sarah sat at the kitchen table when her daughter came downstairs.
"You were screaming."
"I wasn't screaming. I was... feeling."
"Feelings don't wake the neighbors."
Elara sat across from her mother. "The void says the Deepening was keeping something trapped. Something older. Something that doesn't hunger or hope. It just... exists."
"What exists?"
"I don't know. The void does
