The first memory came as a whisper, not a flood. Jordan lay on the cold steel table, electrodes humming against their temples, and suddenly they were standing on a sunbaked beach, salt stinging their lips. The air smelled of seaweed…
## The Echo Thief Rain lashed against the panoramic window of Elias Thorne’s office, blurring the neon sprawl of Neo-San Francisco into an impressionistic watercolor. He ignored it, focused on the data scrolling across his monitor – a chaotic cascade…
## Bloom & Fracture The hum vibrated through Elara’s bones, a constant thrum beneath the manufactured dusk. Sixteen leagues down, past the shimmering algae vats and hydroponic forests, lay Section Gamma-Nine. Her shift began. Not that it mattered much anymore.…
## The Scent of Absent Things The chipped ceramic mug warmed Leo Maxwell’s hands. Rain lashed against the diner window, mirroring the storm inside him. Black coffee didn’t cut it this morning; nothing did. Five years. Five years since the…
## The Ash Bloom Cartography Old Man Tiber hadn’t smelled real salt air in forty years. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of light piercing his workshop’s gloom, illuminating layers of parchment stacked like forgotten strata. He traced a…
## The Stitch & Stone The scent of jasmine hung thick, almost cloying, in the humid Charleston air. Not the sweet perfume of gardens, but a sharper, bruised fragrance clinging to damp cotton. Eliza pressed a handkerchief – one of…
The grit tasted of regret. Ada spat, the fine red dust coating her tongue like a second skin. Eldan hadn’t just *fallen* to the storms; it had been *eaten*. One moment, carved sandstone buildings gleamed, the next, swallowed whole by…