Forgotten Frequency

Long before the System, before cities rose like machines and Echoes became weapons, there were those who listened instead of commanded.

The Pale were born from the first chaos—back when Echoes manifested like dreams, raw and primal. The world didn't yet understand them. Governments tried to control them. Faiths tried to worship them. The System tried to define them.

The Pale did neither.

Instead, they recorded.

They were scholars, outcasts, visionaries—those who found the deeper layers of reality, the buried frequencies behind the Echo. They believed that Echoes weren't just personal powers—they were fragments of something ancient, some force older than human will.

They called it The Source Beneath.

And they believed the System had severed humanity from it.

In a hidden archive known as The Depth Library, a Pale historian named Nerin traced the outlines of a glowing mural. It showed a swirling mass of tendrils descending into a sleeping human form—an image drawn in ash, salt, and bone-dust.

"This is how the Echo first came," she murmured. "Through dreams. Through suffering. Through memory not yet born."

Across from her, a younger initiate trembled. "Why doesn't the rebellion speak of this? Why didn't Alexander know?"

Nerin smiled sadly. "Because they only know the surface. They fight the System's rules—but not its roots. Alexander is different. His Echo… it's fractured. Unstable. That means it's closer to the Source than any of them realize."

Mother Fane stepped into the chamber, robes trailing soundlessly behind her. "He is a bridge. One the System fears. And one we must awaken."

"But the Echo Suppressor—"

"—only works on artificial resonance," Fane interrupted. "Synthetic channels. Predefined powers. It cannot reach what was never part of their mold. The Old Echo runs deeper. Beneath names. Beneath control."

She reached into her sleeve, revealing a small, crystalline shard humming with a dull, organic pulse.

"This is his key," she whispered. "To us. To the truth. To what he is becoming."

The Pale do not fight in legions. They do not rally cities. They move like whispers in the cracks of a screaming world.

And now, after decades in the dark, they had chosen to rise—not for war, but for revelation.

The war between the System and the rebellion was only the first act.

Beneath it all, something else stirred.

Something woken.