Echo bound

The Hollow Ways did not remember. Not the faces. Not the names. Not the footsteps pressed into its ash-laced soil. It swallowed all of it, slowly and gently, like fog rolling in over a dying fire. Kaelen walked through the center of the village with a bundle of firewood balanced on one shoulder. No one greeted him. Not out of unkindness, but because none of them knew if they had already done so. There were no bells in the Hollow Ways. No shrines. No temples. No loud prayers. Just homes made of stone and bone, huts with memory glyphs carved into their foundations like pleas the wind had worn smooth. Kaelen paused by a wall where someone, maybe him, had scratched a spiral into the clay. It pulsed faintly when he touched it, as if trying to remember the hand that made it. But it couldn’t. The Hollow Ways did not remember. But Kaelen could still feel the absence. There were moments, fleeting and painful, when he stood in places and his chest tightened. He knew something had once been sacred there. A name. A voice. A promise. He didn’t remember what, but he remembered that he had forgotten. And that was worse. The ash cairn sat at the edge of the Hollow Ways, where memory ran shallowest. It was not a grave in the true sense. There were no names. No stones with dates or prayers. Just a low mound of scorched earth where the village burned their dead and forgot them before the smoke faded. Kaelen set the bundle of firewood down beside the cairn and knelt. The ground was still warm. Someone else had come recently. A few faint carvings ringed the cairn’s base, glyphs that meant nothing now. Maybe one had meant mother. Maybe one meant mercy. Kaelen added a new mark. A single circle, broken on one side. His hands shook as he cut it into the stone with a bone-shard knife. Not from effort. From frustration. “You could have been anyone,” he said softly. “You might have mattered.” He stared at the smoking earth. “But now you’re no one. And I’m the only one who feels that loss.” He didn’t cry. Yren rarely did. Tears were like names, too fragile to keep. So instead he whispered. Not a prayer. Just a need. “I don’t want to worship. I don’t want to kneel. I just want someone to remember. Someone who stays.” The wind didn’t move. The cairn didn’t answer. But something listened. [Divine Notice: Echo-Bond Detected] Target: Kaelen of the Hollow Ways Emotion Registered: Quiet Despair Intent: Remembrance Without Recognition Initial Connection Accepted... Domain Seed Rebooting... A warmth brushed the air behind him. Not heat, but presence. Like the feeling you get when someone walks into a room and doesn’t speak. Kaelen stood slowly, the bone knife still in his hand. And turned. A figure stood just beyond the cairn, at the edge of the tree line where the fog grew thick. No footsteps. No sound. Just the shape of a man cloaked in long, tattered black robes, edges frayed like ash-blown banners. His face was covered in a veil of pale linen, stitched with a broken circle, the same symbol Kaelen had carved into the stone moments before. He stood still, hands at his sides. Not raised in power or greeting. He just stayed. The warmth Kaelen had felt was stronger now. Not heat, not light. Just presence. Like a memory that hadn’t faded properly. Kaelen didn’t run. He didn’t kneel. He just whispered. “Are you what answered?” The figure tilted his head. A pause. Then a voice, low and steady, like old wood under pressure. “You did not ask to be saved.” Kaelen swallowed. “No.” “You asked to be remembered.” “Yes.” The god took one step forward. The mist didn’t part. It accepted him. “So I came.” [Divine Notice: Divine Form Manifested] Domain: The God Who Stays Bond Level: 1 – Echo-Bound Interface Access: Partially Restored Active Trait: Sanctified Presence – Physical manifestation permitted within Kaelen’s radius. Kaelen’s breath caught, not from fear, but recognition. He didn’t know the figure’s name. But some old part of him, older than names and older than the curse, had always known he would come. “Why now?” Kaelen asked. “Why me?” The god moved no closer. “Because you remembered what others let die. And because I am what remains.” For a moment, they simply stood there, mortal and divine. Not in worship. Not in awe. Just together. A faint pulse ran through the cairn beneath their feet. The spiral Kaelen had carved burned faint gold for a moment, then faded back to grey. But he felt it, something anchoring. Something staying.