Samuel's POV
Location: Earth – Westbrook Ruins, Sector 12B
Time: 6:14 AM
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The dawn was crawling in slowly.
Not bright.
Not warm.
Just… indifferent.
I stood in the same spot where my family once laughed and died. The sun's first light filtered through the crumbling roof, brushing my face with a faint golden hue.
I could still smell faint traces of the past—charred wood, rusted metal, old rain soaked into stone.
"So much power," I murmured, "and still... I can't bring back ashes."
I closed my eyes for just a second.
And that's when I felt it.
A presence.
Soft. Unthreatening. But deliberate.
Not divine. Not entirely human either.
Someone who didn't belong in this fragile world... yet moved through it like they did.
Voidstep wouldn't help me here. Whoever it is—they came to be found.
I turned.
There she stood—
In the middle of the shattered hallway where my kitchen once stood.
Barefoot, wrapped in a faded emerald cloak, her hair dark as midnight and tied loosely behind her head. Her eyes—gray with specks of starlight—locked onto mine with a calm that unnerved even me.
She was young. No older than I was when my life shattered.
And yet, something in her felt… old.
Very old.
"You don't belong here," I said.
"Neither do you," she replied gently, stepping forward over broken floorboards that didn't make a sound.
I didn't flinch. Just watched her.
"Who are you?"
She tilted her head.
"A fragment. A watcher. A promise once made to a boy who would grow to break the stars."
That made my expression shift.
"You knew me before."
"Before names. Before swords. Before you became Samuel Gebb."
She stepped within arm's reach, staring up into my eyes like she saw more than just the god I'd become.
"I've waited here... in the folds of time, tied to this place, for the moment you'd return."
"And now you have."
"Why?" I asked. "To warn me? To test me? Or are you just another shadow from the past?"
She slowly extended a hand, and placed something in my palm.
A memory shard.
Old. Cracked. Bound in silver thread and dripping with remnants of divine restriction.
"This belonged to your sister."
My chest tightened.
Elena.
"Before she died," the girl said softly, "she made a wish. Not to survive—but to guide you home if you ever strayed too far."
The shard pulsed once, and a child's voice—soft, delicate, broken by fear and warmth—whispered from within:
"If you're hearing this, Sammy… you finally made it home."
I couldn't speak.
The girl stepped back, giving me space.
"You've been chasing power. Vengeance. Meaning."
"But sometimes, the only reason to return… is to remember who you were before the pain."
She turned, and began walking away, her form slowly unraveling into strands of starlight.
"Wait," I called out. "Who are you really?"
She smiled over her shoulder—faintly, like a fading dream.
"I'm what's left of a promise you once made... to never forget the people who loved you before the world burned."
And then—she was gone.
I stood there, alone again.
Holding the shard.
Holding a piece of myself I didn't know I still needed.
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Samuel's POV
Location: Edenfall Cemetery – Restricted Zone 7, Earth
Time: 7:03 AM – Clouded Morning
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The gates were rusted shut.
Didn't matter.
They parted before me like breath before a blade.
This place hadn't changed much either.
Overgrown.
Forgotten.
A city's dead tucked away like shame behind the glittering skyline.
I walked between moss-covered stones and nameless markers, some cracked, some swallowed by vines. It wasn't just a graveyard—this was a place where the unremembered rested.
But I remembered.
Every. Single. One.
Especially them.
I found the stone.
Set behind an old sycamore tree.
Small. Modest. Cracked from decades of neglect.
In Loving Memory – Adeline, Marcus, and Elena
Gone too soon. Never forgotten.
I knelt.
Not because I had to.
Not because I was weak.
But because they were the reason I had ever risen.
The wind blew soft. Not divine. Not cursed. Just real.
"I've killed kings," I whispered.
"Broken gods. Shattered systems built to rule existence."
"But nothing ever gave me peace."
I placed the memory shard at the base of the stone. It pulsed once—softly—then faded, becoming part of the grave, like it belonged.
I reached into the Void.
Not to summon power.
But to conjure something gentle.
A small bouquet—Elena's favorite: white asters.
I placed them next to the shard.
Then I sat down.
Just sat.
No armor.
No titles.
No divine aura pressing against the sky.
Just me.
Simon.
The boy who once ran home too late.
The man who carried guilt for three lives.
The god who returned not to conquer, but to remember.
"I never got to say goodbye," I said. "So maybe… this is my chance."
The silence didn't answer.
But I didn't need it to.
Because for the first time in decades…
My soul felt quiet.
And maybe that meant…
They were listening.