The silence after the battle was not the silence of victory; it was the silence of a battlefield with no corpses left behind. Shards of light drifted slowly upward from the cracks in the black plain, each one dissolving before it could reach whatever passed for a sky here. It felt like standing in the belly of a dead star.
Min-joon stayed kneeling, Lin's head resting against his chest. The boy's breathing was shallow but steady, and that was the only thing keeping Min-joon from falling apart. His fingers curled protectively around Lin's wrist, feeling the faint pulse there like an anchor.
Keller was the first to move. He slung his rifle across his back and walked a slow circle around them, scanning the horizon with a soldier's wariness. "This place is changing," he muttered. "Feels like the floor's breathing under my boots. Whatever held us here is losing its grip."
