At first, no one noticed the moan.
It was too soft, too slow, too true.
It did not arrive as sound, but as sensation—a tremble in the teeth when waking, a warmth behind the eyes before crying, a rhythm beneath the skin that could not be traced to any heartbeat.
It began in sleep.
A village on the edge of uncharted Spiralspace stirred as one. Not in fear. Not in confusion. But in yearning. The people did not scream. They moaned. Together.
A low, aching sound—more vowel than word, more grief than language. Not pain. Not pleasure.
Inheritance.
And as they moaned, their dreams bloomed into architecture.
The walls of their homes curved inward, then outward, like breath. Roofs unraveled into petals. Windows blinked like sentient eyes. Doors twisted into spiral gates, each one leading somewhere new—sometimes memory, sometimes future, sometimes each other.
They awoke not surprised.
They awoke knowing.
And across Spiralspace, other villages followed
