Aletheia — Before the First Thought

 Before there was a name, there was only silence.

Not the silence of an empty world, but the silence before a world had learned to exist.
From that silence, something began to gather. Not flesh, not spirit, not thought. A shape without memory, carried by currents older than time, slowly turned toward itself.
Then came the first awareness.
Not a word. Not a question.
Only the impossible realization that there was something to be aware of.
And from that first awakening, everything followed.
Time began to move.
The darkness opened.
And somewhere within the endless becoming of things, Aletheia lowered her head, as if listening to the last echo of the silence from which she had been born.