There is no explosion.

Only the memory of one.

A white so complete it erases itself. A silence so total it rings. A force so catastrophic it leaves behind no force at all—only the echo of its absence, spiraling outward like a dying star that does not know it is dead.

Elaria wakes inside that echo.

Not in a body. Not even in a self.

Just—awareness, trembling, suspended, like a single drop of water caught between falling and evaporating.

The world is not a world.

It is a sphere of ...