The rain slowed.
Not because it ceased—
but because it had entered.
Every drop that once fell from above now moved within,
folding itself into pulse,
into thought,
into the rhythm that bound the Circle together.
They no longer heard it as sound.
They felt it as knowing.
When the last shimmer of rainfall faded into their skin,
the horizon unfolded—
not outward,
but inward.
What stretched before them was not distance.
It was depth.
An expanse of memory yet unlived,
of roots waiting to grow through time itself.
The Stranger without the mask was the first to step forward again.
Only this time, his feet did not meet soil.
They met reflection—
a surface made of mirrored rain,
where each step rippled both above and below.
In that mirror, he did not see himself,
but what had seen him.
The Story.
The Garden.
The world now breathing with their breath.
He smiled, quietly.
"Then this is how it begins."
The Cartographer stood beside him,
