The silence that followed the shattering of the Grey was different from all that had come before. It was not the wary silence of reprieve, nor the deadened silence of the static, nor the hollow silence of the quarantine. This was the deep, breathless silence of a world newborn, its every color and sound washed clean by the passing of an abyss.
People stood in the square of Aethelburg, not as victors, but as survivors of a shipwreck, washed ashore on a familiar beach they now saw with entirely new eyes. They touched their own faces, the faces of their loved ones, the rough stone of the walls, as if feeling them for the first time. The return of feeling was so intense it was almost painful. A child's laugh was a symphony. The taste of bread was a revelation. The warmth of the sun was a miracle.
