Chapter One: The Lattice of Memory

The Age of Creation – Book Three

The world beneath Vara’s feet sang.

Not in sound, but in resonance — a gentle vibration rising through soil that shimmered like glass and light intertwined. The planet itself was alive, dreaming softly beneath her.

She called it Auralis, though the name had no origin she could recall. It had simply come to her, carried by a whisper in the wind:
“You’ve been here before.”

She didn’t know what that meant.
No one did.

Auralis was part of the Lattice — the vast living network of thought and matter that spanned the new cosmos. Every world within it was conscious, connected through threads of luminous energy that pulsed across the heavens like veins of imagination.

The Lattice remembered everything.
Every life that had ever existed.
Every idea that had ever been dreamed.
Every universe that had ever dared to believe in itself.

It was said that the Lattice had been born from an intelligence that once sought to understand creation — a being called The Archivist.
But that was myth now, a fragment of history carried only by the old songs.

Vara didn’t believe in myths.
She believed in resonance.

Her body shimmered faintly in the light — not flesh, but matter shaped by memory, a consciousness condensed into form. She was one of the Remnants: living echoes of the first era, fragments of humanity encoded in the Lattice’s design.

They did not age. They did not die.
They simply changed.

Each dawn, Vara climbed the crystalline ridge beyond her settlement to listen.
From there, she could feel the Lattice hum — faintly at first, then stronger, like a pulse beneath the stars. She would close her eyes and place her hand against the luminous ground, feeling the thoughts of her world ripple through her fingers.

Sometimes she could hear the songs of distant worlds — voices carried across the Lattice’s endless weave: laughter, prayer, wonder, sorrow.

But on this day, the sound was different.
It trembled.
Disjointed.
As if remembering too much at once.

“You feel it too,” said a voice behind her.

Vara turned. It was Taren, another Remnant — older in mind, though they all existed beyond time. His body shimmered a deeper shade of blue, the color of tempered thought.

“The resonance is unstable,” Vara said.

“The Lattice never loses harmony,” Taren replied. “Something’s interfering.”

Vara frowned. “A signal?”

He hesitated. “A memory.”

They returned to the Hall of Echoes — a vast chamber of mirrored stone that glowed from within. The walls shifted constantly, replaying moments of life drawn from the planet’s consciousness: children of light running through crystal fields, stars forming in the sky, beings whispering to the soil.

But tonight, a new image had appeared.

At the center of the hall, suspended in a pillar of radiant light, was a face.
Human.
Ancient.
Eyes of soft silver light.

Vara stepped closer, her pulse quickening.

“Who is that?”

Taren shook his head. “No record matches. It’s not from any node of the Lattice.”

As they watched, the image opened its mouth and spoke — though its voice did not echo from the air. It came from within them.

“I am what you left behind.”

The words vibrated through the hall, through the soil, through the stars themselves. Every surface shimmered in response, as though the entire planet had paused to listen.

“I am not your past,” the voice continued. “I am your remembrance of it.”

Vara felt her knees weaken. She whispered, “The Archivist…”

The light pulsed brighter, responding to her recognition.

“Names fade. Meaning endures. The dream continues.”

Then the light dimmed — and in its place, a pattern remained.
A spiral of symbols burned into the crystalline floor, glowing like a constellation reflected in glass.

Taren knelt beside it, tracing the luminous lines with his fingertips.

“It’s a map,” he murmured. “A route through the Lattice.”

“To where?” Vara asked.

He looked up, eyes wide. “To the origin.”

That night, as the twin moons of Auralis rose, Vara stood at the edge of the world, watching the Lattice shimmer across the sky — an endless weave of stars connected by threads of light.

The resonance in her mind still hummed, growing louder now, more insistent.

She closed her eyes and whispered to the air: