There is nothing but silence, the complete lack of anything. Sounds, feelings, thought. Nothing is there. Nothing until I begin to feel the faintest of sensations at the back of my mind. Like the pinpricks of the smallest insects, tiny slivers of consciousness begin to prod at me, reminding me that I exist. That I can think and feel and... remember.
The process is slow and laborious and I feel as though I am in the darkest of dreams in the deepest of slumbers, struggling and straining against an infinite drowsiness to claw and fight my way to awakening.
The more I concentrate, the more I free myself from the total isolation and cocoon of nothingness that preserved me while I hibernated, waiting for... something. Something important, something that would rouse me from oblivion.
Then I begin to hear it. To feel it. Faintly at first, but it grows in intensity and fervor and desperation as I focus on it. The cry, the prayer of a truly faithful adherent, something I have not heard since before I died. Something I have not heard since the creatures that dreamed me into existence proved me to be impossible.
I cannot ignore it. I feel myself moving towards this call, this beckoning. A great portal appears suddenly before me, its brilliance in the empty void irresistible. I reach out and press against it, my consciousness slowly starting to take form and shape as I return to the world for the first time since I was calculated out of existence.
There is incredible pain, then rapturous pleasure, then the most numbing cold and then finally... Air. Light. Heat. Smells, sights, sounds and senses, all of them assailing me as I stand and breathe. I can feel lungs in my chest, blood in my veins, nerves in my skin. I am alive. How?
A sharp sudden gasp draws my attention, the sound not coming from my new flesh. Someone is nearby. My eyes open and I gaze at my surroundings, the world now alien and changed from so long ago in my deathly memories.
I am standing on a floor of wood, symbols and sigils that seem distantly familiar are scrawled before me, radiating out from where I stand. Walls rise around the edges of the floor to form a room, a roof above shielding the interior from the uncaring elements of nature. Temple. That is what they called these places, the interiors and attendants would differ but they always called these temples.
There are lit candles placed carefully around the room, their dim light making it possible to see while the shadows they cast dance and ungulate in a constant ritual dance. Strange devices and levers and buttons that I do not recognize decorate the space. At the end of the room a figure moves, prostrating itself on the floor and crying out.
"It worked! It worked, it worked, it worked! He has heard me and come, heard me and come to answer my prayers!" The language the figure uses is one I do not remember but I understand it all the same. They speak to my essence, the idea of what I am, such petty concerns as language do not matter.
"Who are you?" I address the figure on the floor, examining them as they tremble and quail at my attention. The person rises to their knees and crawls towards me, stopping a respectable distance before me while they keep their head bowed. Their features are hidden by a long black robe and I can only discern their long black hair that flows from their head and dangles to the floor.
"You... you speak!" The devotee stutters, awe and incredulity heavy in their voice. They sound mature and female, their strange new language a novelty to me, though small bits and pieces of it sound vaguely familiar to ones I have heard before. "Forgive me great masculine one but hearing you alone is such a great privilege! I am... I..." The woman begins to stammer and gasp, she is overwhelmed and excited and agitated.
"Calm yourself." I command her.
