Echoes of the First Dawn
The city was not empty.
Not completely.
As Aurelia stepped into the plaza, the fountain began to glow, and the silence filled with shapes made of light—children laughing without sound, scholars crossing forgotten paths, families gathering beneath golden towers.
They were not ghosts.
They were memories.
Fragments of a civilization that had vanished long ago, still repeating the final traces of a life the city refused to forget.
Aurelia watched in silence, caught between wonder and unease.
Because if these were only echoes…
why did one of them turn to look at her?