Prologue — The Year is 2077
No war.
No plague.
No monsters rising from beneath the earth.
The world was calm.
Too calm.
Until, once each month—
ten thousand people vanished.
No warning.
No light.
No sound.
No goodbye.
They disappeared.
From crosswalks and coffee shops.
From school desks and hospital beds.
From gardens, workplaces, and lullabies.
And no one knew why.
In the first year, the world broke.
Grief thundered through cities.
Chaos bloomed like weeds in the cracks of order.
Governments collapsed under the weight of unanswerable questions.
Borders closed.
Riots surged.
Families turned against leaders,
Leaders against truth,
And truth against itself.
News stations wept statistics.
Mass prayers filled empty stadiums.
The internet became a graveyard of names.
People searched with prayers.
With fists.
With silence.
And all they found was… nothing.
But then—
the year ended.
And some came back.
Not many.
Perhaps one in ten.
They were older. Wiser. Scarred.
Haunted by what they had seen.
They spoke of other worlds.
Strange, cruel, breathtaking worlds.
Kingdoms ruled by beasts.
Empires on the edge of ruin.
Wildernesses where spirits spoke through snowfall,
Or winds carried the thoughts of trees.
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No return was ever the same.
No journey repeated.
Each story… singular.
They called it: The Crossing.
And soon, humanity learned:
Each month, ten thousand would vanish.
Each year, maybe a few thousand would return.
Some died.
Some chose to stay.
Some changed too much to be recognized.
There were no chosen ones.
No epic prophecies.
No destined heroes.
Just people—
Ordinary people—
Thrust into extraordinary fates,
Learning to survive, to adapt, to endure.
But the ones who remained behind?
They carried their own burdens.
The grief. The waiting. The silent, aching hope.
Fighting without swords.
Enduring without answers.
---
And in the second year… something changed.
Some of the Returned carried with them a strange energy.
A presence that shimmered beneath the skin.
Not light.
Not power.
But something felt.
Invisible, yet undeniable.
Scientists didn’t have a word for it.
But the people did.
They called it: Resonance.
It was as if part of another world still clung to them—
A thread of memory, of vibration, of soul.
Resonance couldn’t be measured by machines,
But it could be felt.
Like a warm pressure behind the chest.
A pull. A hum. A stillness.
And slowly, quietly…
this Resonance began to change things.
---
The monthly vanishings, once relentless, began to decline.
From ten thousand… to nine.
Then eight.
Year by year, the number fell.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
The pattern was clear.
Humanity clung to that hope.
And to those who returned, they gave a new name—
Anchors.
Not saviors.
Not saints.
But living proof that something could return.
That not all was lost.
---
And now, ten years have passed.
The world still mourns.
But it has not fallen.
The governments rebuilt—
Leaner. Humbled.
Borders reopened.
Cities adapted.
People learned to grieve together.
To wait together.
To believe.
And the vanishings… continue.
But slower.
Much slower.
From ten thousand a month,
To just one thousand.
Still unbearable.
But no longer hopeless.
And now, each year, a hundred return.
Carrying stories.
Carrying Resonance.
Carrying the silent dream that maybe, just maybe,
The final Crossing will come.
And no one else will vanish again.
Each returning Anchor is a whisper of that dream.
Each soul—irreplaceable.
Each one—part of something greater.
And once again…
the world holds its breath.
As the next thousand prepare to disappear.
Each one a spark.
Each one a story.
Each one…
A note in the great, echoing song of Resonance.
---
