Suddenly,

as if drawn through the folds of a dream-

you’ve awakened in another realm.

No memory of arrival… No sense of time.

Only this one question:

Where am I?

WELCOME TO SANCTUARY

The air is still here... so, so still.

The ground—cracked and brittle beneath me—feels like a map that’s been burned at the edges. It’s quiet, but not empty. And as I scan the desert landscape I can sense something under the silence.

Watching. Waiting. Expecting something of me.

My stomach turns in anxious anticipation as I acknowledge I have been called here. This place feels like a question I’ve been avoiding… and although on the surface it would seem survival is my only real task, I’m not sure that is actually it at all… There’s something even deeper than that at play—

I’m being asked to remember something-

Not just about the world, but about what it means to be

me.

There are five. —Relics.

Not artifacts of the past, but… something else. I can feel them scattered across this broken landscape. They hum in the distance like faint signals, calling me. Each one a threshold…. no, more like a key. Each one a necessity.

Without them, there’s no way forward.

They aren’t just things- They’re pieces Of the journey.

No, Wait…they are pieces of me.

I sense somehow that some other version of myself left them here—

breadcrumbs, if you will… messages folded into form.

Each relic carries a whisper…

a reminder from, or maybe of someone I used to be— someone who knew how to find their way home.

A word forms in my head,

PRESIDIO

I’m suddenly aware that this is my primary task- If I want to make it there… to the Presidio, I’ll have to gather them all. Not only to collect them… but feel through them and let them change me.

I don’t know what the Presidio truly is, only that it’s waiting for me— Like a door that only opens when something inside you begins to waken. Maybe it’s not a place at all- Maybe it’s what happens when you finally start looking.

All I know is this:

To find sanctuary, I have to begin.

QUEST #1

The wind finally begins to speak to me…and I strain to listen as to not miss a word.

But it’s really more like a low, wavering hum… like a ribbon of sound twisting just beyond the ear. Not quite music, but not not-music either. It’s beautiful in a way that frightens me.

I look up.

The horizon is molten—dust and light folding into each other like breath in the heat. The only landmark is one single towering bluff standing, towering in front of me. Casting the only shade for miles and miles. It somehow seems out of place, lonely- like a single actor standing on the stage of an empty theatre, dying to be heard.

There are no signs- except the fragile ground pulsing beneath me.

The cracks in the earth begin to form a path— faint, deliberate, as if something ancient dragged its fingers through the sand and meant for me to follow.

I take a step- Then another.

Each movement feels louder than it should, like the air is listening.

Every color here has weight, every scent holds shape.

Even the air itself seems alive with intention—sweet, dry, electric.

And then, halfway buried in the sand… I see it.

A vessel.

A black glass bottle with a label worn smooth by time. Somehow the vessel is still intact, like it had been waiting underground for someone to remember it was left there. Tied around its narrow neck is a red cord with two dangling feathers-faded but stubbornly waving in the wind, as if to say “Hello, thank the skies you are here.”

It flutters slightly, as if aware of my presence.

I don’t know why, but I know it matters.

I kneel… brush the sand away.

As soon as I touch it— the wind stops. The heat fades.

And I am no longer in the desert.

I stand now in a high, pale canyon.

The light here is softer, whiter—diffused through towering limestone walls that echo with distant birdsong and laughter I can’t place. The sky above is incredibly blue, but the air carries coolness like breath through a cave.

I know this place. Not with my mind, but in my bones.

And I am not alone— A figure waits at the far end of the canyon.

Not young, not old. Draped in wind-colored cloth, their face obscured by light.

I can feel them. Not watching me, exactly… more like holding space.

They speak without words, and somehow, I understand:

“You cannot serve the world by turning to dust.

You are not here to wither. You are here to breathe. To thrive.”

My throat tightens.

Something in me wants to argue—but I know they’re right.

How long have I been trying to earn a right to exist by giving myself away?

“Let go,” the voice continues.

“What does not serve you must fall away- only then can you carry what matters.”

The bottle is in my hand now. I hadn’t noticed actually picking it up. It feels different here—lighter, warm…the black glass heated by the clear light of day.

I lift it closer.

There’s something inside. It doesn’t move like liquid… it moves like air made visible.

And the feathers— now bright red, impossibly red—seem to pulse at the edge of my vision.

This is the first relic,

CHISOS.

I don’t know what it will ask of me yet.

But I can feel it working already, like the smell of rain just before the first drop hits the ground.

And then suddenly I’m back in the desert.

I can see more clearly now

The winds return…

But I’m not the same.