The page opens in a hush of ink and dust. A cathedral of steel and broken glass towers over a ruined boulevard; its stained windows are black mirrors catching nothing but the smudged memory of the sky. In the foreground, a single spotlight of pale moonlight slices through the choking haze and lands on a small, peculiar device — a round cassette-shaped canister stamped with the number 1639, worn edges flaking like the bark of a dead tree. Beside it, scrawled in an urgency that still smells faintly of ozone, the words: "Chubold Vcd — En Cantate Shadows Mono."