This memory was not meant for the past. It was left for whoever would come after.

  By the time it began, the world of Coronnae had already started to disappear. The sky above it drained slowly of color until only a heavy darkness remained, swallowing the stars and the horizon alike. Wind no longer moved across the land. Sound itself seemed to fade, as if the world had already begun forgetting how to exist.

  Only one place still held light.

  Bearer’s Veil stood alone against the fading dark, its tall stone tower rising like the last stubborn memory of a world that refused to vanish quietly. Within its highest chamber a barrier of pale radiance surrounded four figures, the glow drifting through the air like fragments of distant starlight.

  Three of them stood within that fragile circle of light. The fourth knelt at its center.

  One figure gripped a sword that trembled in his hand. His posture was rigid with grief, though he refused to collapse beneath it. In the dim glow a single strand of golden-brown hair caught the light before disappearing again among darker strands.

  Another stood upright beside him, unmoving even as the tower trembled. A faint warmth lingered in the air around her, subtle but persistent, like the dying breath of a flame that refused to go out.

  The third was only a boy... seemed to be the youngest among them; his hands were pressed firmly against the glowing barrier by reinforcing it with whatever magic left inside him to held it together. Even with the world unraveling beyond the tower walls, he refused to step away.

  At the center knelt the one who created the light.

  His dark hair fell loosely around his face, streaked faintly with pale color that shimmered in the glow of the spell. Bright blue eyes reflected the fragments of memory rising slowly through the chamber as the ritual deepened.

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  The light around him pulsed again.

  Outside the tower, the darkness thickened. The sky had already lost its shape, collapsing inward until even the idea of distance seemed to disappear. Whatever moved beyond it was vast enough that the tower trembled each time it shifted.

  Within the barrier, the boy leaned further into the spell, adding his strength without hesitation. The glow steadied where his hands touched it, though the air beyond the chamber groaned like a world under unbearable weight.

  The man with the trembling sword sank slowly to one knee as grief bent his shoulders, though his hand never released the weapon.. Behind them, the woman did not move; she is witnessing fate made manifest... it was a nightmare beyond human comprehension.The kneeling figure remained calm.

  Fragments of memory continued to rise from the chamber floor, drifting upward like scattered stars; fragments faces and numerous stories passed through the light. Places long gone. Voices that would soon vanish with the world itself.

  The ritual had already begun to take its price.

  Thin strands of light separated from his skin and drifted upward into the barrier, dissolving into the glow that protected the others. Each fragment carried a memory with it, spreading into the darkness beyond the tower.

  The boy pressed harder against the barrier.

  The man bowed his head.

  The woman watched.

  Beyond the tower walls, the last shape of the sky finally disappeared; there was no horizon anymore. The land nor the stars were left within their human sight, only endless, black. The tower shook once more, a deep shudder that seemed to pass through the bones of the world itself. For a moment the barrier flared brighter, holding against the darkness pressing in from every direction.

  Inside the fading glow, the kneeling figure slowly lifted his head.

  His body had begun to unravel completely now, threads of pale light drifting upward into the air like dust caught in sunlight... yet his gaze remained clear, as this memory would sure to survive this catastrophic end for whatever came after.

  And as the final fragments of his form dissolved into the light, his voice carried through the silence that had replaced the world.

  Carry this memory forward… and let humanity try again.

  The glow scattered into the darkness, the tower vanished, the world followed. In this void, only the memory remained.