It began with tremors.
Not seismic. Not physical.
Emotional compression.
As Driftroot's Vaultseed extended its lowest rootlights toward the Oceanic Shroud, a pressure unlike gravity pulled downward. Not with force. With recognition.
Kye stood in the submerged listening gallery, newly built into the underbelly of Driftroot's exo-basal ring. There were no viewports here. Only resonance mesh—a cocoon of ambient sound and mnemonic thrum that translated underwater signals into light-based textures.
And today, the patterns rippled backward.
Like a dream remembering you.
Zeraphine entered with eyes wider than usual, her fingertips brushing the pulses along the observation rail.
> "This shouldn't be possible. The signal isn't repeating. It's responding."
Kye nodded slowly. "It's not echo. It's invitation."
The signal's architecture was wrong.
Not encoded by machine.
Not shaped by will.
It was coalesced.
Layered memory—compressed into density.
The Chronicle flame flickered to silver at his wrist, whispering a line:
> "Deep remembrance—layered, hidden, chosen."
And then the signal deepened.
No longer three notes. No longer tonal.
A voice.
But not a voice speaking.
A voice held.
Kye felt it in his jaw, in the base of his spine. Zeraphine sank to her knees.
The room dimmed.
And in the center of the mesh chamber, a single word surfaced:
"Return."
Not a command.
A memory being pulled home.
Kye whispered, "I think we're being asked to descend."
Zeraphine looked up. "You mean... dive?"
"Not in space."
He touched the panel, locking Driftroot's orbital tethers. "In memory."
She understood.
> ARTICLE FIFTY-EIGHT: Some echoes aren't fading—they're gathering beneath the surface, waiting for someone to listen deep enough to become changed.
The Oceanic Shroud grew closer in the station's low-orbit scans, though visually it remained indistinct—a swirling void of nonresponse. No bounce. No telemetry.
Yet within that dark: invitation.
Zeraphine activated the preparation sequence for the Vessel Mirrinth—an old descent-class pressurecraft, retrofitted for memorylight compatibility.
Kye entered the cockpit without hesitation.
"I don't know what we'll find," she said.
"Neither do I," Kye replied. "But something knows us."
The Mirrinth detached.
And began to fall.