The Archive

Something begins to gather.

Not whole stories.

Not perfect records.

Fragments.

Bits of language.

Half-remembered sounds.

Poetry without a clear author.

Data shards that feel more emotional than informational.

This is what survives in The Rooted Age. __________________________________________________________________________________ After everything changed, no one thought to preserve things neatly.

There were no pristine libraries or flawless backups. What remained arrived damaged, glitched, incomplete... held together by memory, intuition, and care.

These fragments are known as the Archive.

It isn’t a place of certainty.

It’s a place of listening.

Some fragments surface on their own.

Others are uncovered slowly.

And some are offered.

The Archive holds what survives...

Voices.

Traces.

Sounds.

Images recovered from corrupted files or half-remembered dreams.

Written forms that don’t quite behave like language, but insist on being recorded all the same.

The Archive grows quietly.

Not through intention, but through attention.

In the coming weeks, more fragments will surface.

Some will arrive unexpectedly.

Others will be placed there with care.

Some fragments are found.

Some are given. And woven through the fragments, a question repeats:

If everything else fell away, what would you preserve?