Maybe the Awakened registry keeps records separate from public platforms. Maybe there's a privacy protocol for people who went through the Origin Realm together, some kind of protective anonymity I don't fully understand yet. Maybe —
He stopped himself, forcing the same careful, methodical discipline he'd once applied to Renna's star chart onto the growing pile of evidence currently keeping him awake.
Two misremembered stories. Missing photographs. No trace of Elane anywhere. Any one of those, alone, might mean nothing. All three together —
He rose before dawn, moving quietly through the still-dark house, and found himself standing at the threshold of his parents' bedroom door, listening to the soft, steady sound of their breathing, some deep, instinctive part of him needing to confirm they were actually, physically present rather than simply assumed.
They were there. Breathing, sleeping, unmistakably real in every way his careful senses could verify.
