PROLOGUE — The World After Collapse

When Aline’s Canvas shattered, the painted world dissolved like wet pigment. The sky bled back into blankness. Streets peeled away. Faces, colors, and entire years ran together and drained into the dark. But not everything vanished. Three things remained suspended in the void: Verso — the soul echo that had anchored the Canvas. Aline — dragged into the liminal realm she once shaped. A memory fragment of Maelle — a lingering resonance of Alicia’s ideal self. Time has no meaning here. Color is absent. Reality is faint, like a draft left unfinished.