A searing pain tore through Gwen's skull. His legs buckled without warning, sending him sprawling onto the grimy concrete of the abandoned subway tunnel. Dust motes, disturbed by his fall, danced in the flickering emergency lights that barely pierced the suffocating gloom. His vision blurred. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth, a taste of iron on his tongue. He had bitten it hard when he fell. A distant, rhythmic hum vibrated through the tracks, not a train, but something deeper, more resonant. The Primordial Soup, a whisper in his collapsing mind. Cold seeped into his bones from the hard ground. His head throbbed, a relentless drumbeat against his temples. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt like lead, unresponsive. The tunnel began to spin, the faint lights stretching into distorted streaks of sickly yellow. Panic clawed at his throat. This wasn't just exhaustion. This was the Soup, consuming him from the inside out. Memories, precious fragments of his life, evaporated like mist. He couldn't remember what he was doing here. Where was he going? Who was he running from? Fear, raw and primal, seized him. He couldn't lose himself. Not now. Not when so much depended on him. He needed an anchor, something to tether him to reality. His power, his illusions. He had to fight back. Mustering every ounce of his failing will, Gwen reached deep within. He focused on the purest, most innocent part of himself. A time before the fear, before the magic, before the crushing weight of expectation. He needed a guide, a younger version of himself, untainted. Slowly, painfully, a form shimmered into existence beside him. A small boy, no older than seven, with wide, curious eyes and a tangle of unkempt hair. The child wore tattered clothes, stained with grime, exactly as Gwen remembered himself from the cyber-slums. The boy looked at him, head tilted, a faint glow around his silhouette.

Grave of Memories