The first thing you remember is a dream

in which you find yourself walking slowly down a long, dark tunnel. The ground underfoot is cold, wet, and sharp with jagged rocks. There’s a chill wind blowing against your back. It’s too dark to see, the tunnel ahead like a black hole swallowing every sense. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you move forward. Then, voices.

“A broken cycle will always spiral into itself. A lost soul will drift forever. Existence itself is an abyss. We, those blessed with life, are also cursed to traverse it, the great abyss, and it’s all we will ever know.”

The voices grow. Not louder, but in quantity, like a thousand whispers from all around you. A strange blueish-greenish light appears at the end of the tunnel. Even as you feel compelled to walk faster towards it, it doesn’t seem to get any closer.

“We are not the world, we are its observers, we exist to tell its story. You, the forsaken, are the medium for a work of art with an unfeeling, incomprehensible, and infinitely vast celestial patron.”

A dark figure appears at the end of the tunnel, silhouetted against the strange blue light. It’s the form of a man, but unnaturally tall, slender, looming. You can’t be sure, but you feel his eyes on you. A deep, heavy voice booms at you, overpowering the others.

“Your soul belongs to me, forsaken, your soul belongs to the heavens, to the holy abyss. You, forsaken, your sacrifice, will be the salvation of all, in the end. If you cannot accept this mission, if you cannot take on this eternal task, the cycle will break. You will spiral down into the abyss, and cease to exist at all. Come to me, forsaken, and take your place in the cycle, play your part, or be forgotten forever.”

The voices grow in volume until they seem like they’re emanating from deep inside your own head, then suddenly cease. The figure in the light dissipates like vapor, and the light solidifies into the stark perfect circle of a full moon overhead.

For a few moments, you watch the thick gray clouds overtake it. Then you realize your tunnel has changed in shape, it’s more even now, rectangular. As you sit up, grasping at the walls of your open grave, you feel as though you haven’t moved in years, like you’re breaking the rust off your bones. With great effort, with all the strength you have, you climb from your deep dark grave out into the cool night air of the New Bethlehem Holy Church Cemetery. In the distance you see the same green-blue light barely peaking through the thin black trees. You trudge through the mud as it begins to rain and you reach the source of the light, the North Star Tavern. You enter through the rotten wooden swing doors into a smoky saloon that smells like tobacco and stagnation.

It’s a small, pitiful place. Hardly anyone's talking, everyone’s wasted, the bartender’s reading a large book while most of the bottles behind him collect dust. You walk to the back room, where, in a dark corner, you see the slender figure at a table, barely lit by a flickering electric lantern, sitting with several strangers. The figure is wearing a dark, hooded garment, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t make out his face in the shadow. He beckons, you take your seat next to the others.

“Every component in its place. You, forsaken, souls tethered. Spirits sewn together. The world is coming apart, and it you must too tether. A holy machine has been disassembled and must be rebuilt. That is your task, that is your place. If you neglect it, your life force will drain. You will wither. You will disappear. You may be aware that you can’t remember your pasts, who you were. That is because I require fresh servants, pure of mind and spirit to do this holy work. You will retrieve the relics, the holy pieces, and bring them to me. I will visit you in dreams to guide your way. We will meet on the spirit plane and your path will be made clear. I sense some of you may not be grasping the gravity of your situation so let me say clearly, if you return the holy pieces to me, I will return your soul, if you fail to do so, you will die.”