Deep within the forest where no light dared to reach, bones lay scattered across the cold earth, bleached white beneath centuries of moss and rot. The silence here was absolute, broken only by the occasional rustle of wind through dead branches.
Then, slowly, the bones began to shift.
"It seems you have finally recovered your body."
The voice echoed through the darkness, neither male nor female, ancient and weightless, as if it came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
A skeleton rose from the ground, joints clicking into place one by one until a full pristine frame stood upright among the trees. Where there should have been emptiness, faint embers of green light flickered within the hollow sockets of its skull.
"Took you long enough to wake me," the skeleton muttered, voice dry and rasping like wind through a cave. "Where am I? Last thing I remember is that woman's mana bomb tearing through my chest."
