Before the Collapse, the Gate-Singers kept the flesh-spirits dormant with songs of stillness. But one priestess, Ilenya of the Veil, sought communion instead. With a prism forged from dream-mineral and bound by ancestral song, she approached the Cocoon Oracle.

In its grin was the map to the Beginning. She held the prism aloft, and the walls of the ruin began to bleed light and voice. Tentacles awakened. Minds unfolded. The door behind her birthed the First Returner—a head of thought, crowned in glyph.

Elsewhere, in the violet shadow of the mountains, the High Guardian Ezerem held the New Flesh: a being of balance, born from the convergence of order and void. Their arrival marked the beginning of the Rekindling.

But it was the kneeling Oracle, alone under the sky, who whispered the First Contract, echoing through the sand and stars: “Flesh remembers. Spirit returns.”