The dream came for the first time in years.
Lena stood in a vast, empty space—not the dream space she had visited with the Keeper, but something older. More primal. The air was thick with a presence she couldn't name, a weight that pressed against her consciousness like the memory of a forgotten grief.
"You think you have healed everything," a voice said. "But you have only healed the wounds you could see. There are others. Deeper. Older. Wounds that existed before existence itself."
"Who are you?" Lena asked.
"We are what was left behind. What was forgotten. What was never loved. We are the shadows of the first connection—the parts that could not hold the light."
The shadows surrounded her. They had no form, no face, no voice—just the feeling of being watched. Of being judged. Of bei
