It was in the depths of the old Centrum Library ruins.

In the back of a collapsed archive room, within the sealed “Zero Archive," lay dormant the “sensory records" that should have been deleted by the Empire.

They weren’t books.

Sealed in metal boxes were thin, skin-like recording media—"tactile data elements." The moment her finger touched one, an alien sensation raced through Juliana’s body.

In an instant, her body had received “another person’s life."

Johannes’ voice echoed in her head.

“Of the five senses, touch is the most 'violent.’ That’s because it violates the boundaries of others. Body-consciousness is the consciousness that achieves 'unity with the world’ through one’s own flesh."

Strange marks began appearing on Juliana’s skin.

Minute patterns. Like ancient inscriptions, something was being “recorded" on her body.

She realized—this was a cipher through sensation.

“I can… read this."

Each time she traced the sensations etched into her skin, memories returned.

All of it was “history carved into her own body."

But among them were also “memories of others."

In the Empire’s execution chambers, the final process was “skin sensation data extraction."

This was to analyze the “final sensations" of the condemned. Whether pleasure or pain, fear or resignation—these were recorded and used for future control.

The “recording elements" that Juliana had touched were archives of such “execution sensations." When she received them, her body experienced “the deaths of a thousand people."

“Live… Juliana…"

It was her mother’s hand.

A skin memory that mother had left in the midst of torture. Love had been carved into her through skin.

Juliana wept.

But those tears weren’t from pain.

They came from touching “proof of having lived."

Johannes’ words continued.

“Everything you touch becomes your 'interior.’ Your pain becomes someone else’s pain. Your warmth becomes someone else’s hope."

In that moment, Juliana realized she had never been “alone."

It was both the terror of mixing with others and simultaneously the salvation of connecting with them.

The next morning, Juliana stood in the civic square.

She removed her gloves and touched the “ground" with her bare hands.

The city’s skin. The Empire’s memory.

There, countless “traces of the living" lay dormant.

And she felt it with certainty.

The memories of all life that had lived, loved, suffered, and died in this place were carved into the “book of sensation" that was skin.

At that moment, Juliana’s “body-consciousness" fully awakened.