The stone didn't release echoes from the past. It released dreams from the future.
On a foggy night, a stone from the coastal region began to glow. But not with ordinary light. The glow was like a shadow of something yet to happen. The echo it released wasn't a story, wasn't a memory, wasn't a wound. It was possibility.
Yohwa approached. He heard a voice he'd never known. A voice from a self not yet formed. A voice from a world not yet chosen.
Rava touched the stone. She saw a garden not yet built. Children not yet born. Carvings not yet made. "This isn't an echo," she said. "It's a dream."
Numa tried reading its frequency. But his tools couldn't detect a pattern. "This echo isn't stable," he said. "Because the future hasn't chosen its shape."
Raka stood beside the stone. He smiled. "In my season, stones like this were called Marking Stones. They don't speak of what was. They speak of what could be."
In the village, children began dreaming of worlds that didn't exist. They saw rivers flowing into the sky. Stones that could sing. Versions of themselves as guardians of echoes not yet born.
Yohwa sat before the stone. He asked, "Is this our future?"
The stone replied with shifting echoes. As if saying: That depends on who dares to dream.
The Soul Eclipse approached. But this time, it didn't absorb. It spun gently, as if guarding the dream from interference.
Rava recorded: "This stone doesn't offer answers. It offers possibility."
And that night, the Satria did not sleep. They listened to echoes that hadn't yet become. And for the first time, they didn't ask what would happen. They asked: What could happen if we dared to imagine it?