He woke to the sound of wind scraping against broken stone.
The air was dry. Cold. Still.
He didn't know his name.
Didn't know where he was. Or why he couldn't remember anything but the sense that something had been taken from him—gutted, hollowed out, and left to echo.
The cave around him was dim. Dust drifted through slats of fading light that spilled in from a cracked arch above. He sat up slowly, muscles creaking with disuse.
His skin bore faint etchings—patterns not quite scars, not quite symbols. Familiar in a way that hurt to look at.
He was alone.
But not entirely.
A presence stirred near the back wall—faint but solid. The creature that emerged was neither threatening nor familiar.
A fox-like guardian with antlers that shimmered faintly with internal starlight.
It watched him in silence.
"You woke," it said.
He flinched. The voice was not spoken aloud but drifted through his thoughts like the rustle of leaves.
"What... is this place?"
"What remains of your making," the creature replied. "Or what's left of it."
A shimmer pulsed through the air behind it.
Space folded, shifted, and gave way—revealing a door. Not built into the cave. Suspended. Waiting.
Runed in metal, wrapped in lightless gold.
He stood. Instinct drew him toward it.
The creature padded beside him, tail swaying.
"You were something before," it said. "Not just someone. Something more."
He touched the handle.
Cold. Real.
The door opened.
---
The Emporium should not have existed.
And yet it did.
It sprawled across a space that bent logic.
Walls too wide for the mountain that supposedly housed them. Lanterns burned in suspended rings without chains.
Shelves stacked with artifacts that hummed.
A forge flickered quietly in one corner, embers dancing without heat.
He stepped inside.
It felt like returning.
As he passed the threshold, something stirred beneath his feet. Not hostile. Just... recognition.
The fox-creature followed him in. It brushed past him and leapt onto a nearby pedestal, curling its tail around its paws.
"This is yours now."
"I don't even know who I am."
"Names come later. Meaning comes first."
Something shifted behind the counter at the heart of the emporium.
A book opened itself, its cover sighing as pages fluttered in place. The clasp shimmered with faint light, and a warmth passed through the room.
He approached.
The first page turned on its own, revealing no ink—only meaning.
> Welcome, Proprietor. The shop remembers.
Functions recalled: to trade, to forge, to tend, to mend, to grow, to call.
He traced the page with a cautious hand.
> New items sensed. Inventory incomplete.
Drawers behind the counter opened softly.
A kettle somewhere began to whistle.
He turned slowly.
The Emporium was waking.
Even if he wasn't.
---
The first customer arrived by accident.
She stumbled through the rift outside—a tear that shimmered between crag rock and cave wall.
She was young. Battle-worn.
Her clothes marked with burn lines and faded crests.
He didn't speak at first. Just watched as she hesitated at the door.
"What is this?" she asked.
He looked at the fox, who said nothing.
He answered, "A place that shouldn't exist."
Her eyes scanned the shelves.
Her breath caught.
"I… I've been dreaming of this."
He said nothing.
She approached one of the relics—a pendant forged of glass and scorched bark.
Her hand trembled as she lifted it.
The pendant pulsed.
A memory surged through her.
She gasped. Her knees buckled.
He caught her.
When she looked at him again, her eyes were wet.
"That was my brother's. I lost him in the collapse. How did you—how does this place have it?"
He didn't answer.
But something inside him knew.
She stayed for hours.
She wept. Laughed. Bought nothing.
Left a torn coin behind. The relic remained.
As the rift closed behind her, he stared after it for a long time.
"I don't even know how she got here," he said.
"Need finds its way," the fox replied.
---
Days blurred.
The Emporium grew.
Shelves adjusted. A garden appeared behind the inner curtain—lush with glowing herbs and midnight vines.
The forge sparked back to life.
Seeds began to respond to touch.
He planted the one from his inventory. It sang.
Relics began appearing without him sourcing them. Items filtered in—sometimes glowing, sometimes broken, sometimes humming with forgotten songs.
Customers trickled in.
A man with no arm and a bird on his shoulder, looking for a name he'd forgotten.
A child who didn't speak but left behind a carved wooden key.
A woman who bled stars.
None paid in coin.
But the Emporium kept growing.
And with it, so did he.
Each night, the book responded.
Each night, he found another piece of himself tucked inside a drawer, a forge spark, a kettle's whistle.
The fox watched. Occasionally, it spoke.
"You were a god once."
He laughed bitterly. "Gods don't forget their names."
"Only when they choose to."
---
More customers began to come.
One wandered in from a battlefield, still bleeding.
Another brought a map that rewrote itself when held.
A silent old man traded a single breath for a relic that glowed blue.
Some left stories. Some left nothing.
One left a song.
The shop began changing in response.
Rooms added themselves.
One door opened to a winter field with no sky.
Another opened into a library that read you.
He began crafting again—though he didn't remember learning how.
Metal bent beneath his fingers like it wanted to be shaped.
Seeds bloomed in his presence.
Some tools responded to his touch like old friends.
Still, he never left.
He couldn't.
The Emporium was both his sanctuary and his prison.
---
Until one night, a girl walked in with no shadow.
She didn't speak, but her eyes held the weight of too many lives.
She left behind a mirror that reflected things yet to happen.
When she exited through a door that hadn't been there moments ago, the fox said only:
"The Emporium remembers her."
"Why does it remember anyone at all?"
"Because memory is the only thing stronger than oblivion."
---
He sat alone some nights, staring into the forge flame.
It pulsed with slow memory.
He still didn't know his name.
But every item, every visit, every interaction—he was rebuilding himself.
Not in form. In meaning.
And somewhere, deep inside, he felt it: a pull.
A call.
He wasn't just a forgotten god.
He was the last echo of something the world tried to bury.
And the Emporium had chosen not to forget.