They walked.
The cat led.
Its paws left no mark in the ash, no sound upon the fractured stone. It moved as though Hell itself parted to allow it passage, the ruins bending subtly with each step.
Golden eyes cut the darkness with unnatural certainty, each flick of its tail a punctuation in the silence.
The silence—gods, the silence. It pressed upon them heavier than the smoke, heavier than the stench.
It was not absence but presence, thick with memory, with ghosts of screams that refused to die. The kind of silence that made the living whisper so as not to awaken it.
Claire finally muttered, unable to restrain herself. "....this cat, this cat is...is doing something to me, charming, does this cat have Charming skills...."
"Please ..Shut your mouth," Lara snapped, though her lips twitched despite herself. "You'll wake the dead."
"They're already awake," Claire smirked, nodding at the corpses. "Look at them. Erased, not killed. Almost poetic, don't you think?"
