The darkness that followed was not empty.
It was not the gentle stillness of a night unbroken by sound, nor the void of silence that comes after ruin. It was heavier than both thick, velvet, suffocating. It pressed against the skin as though the very air had congealed into something tangible, a weight that settled into marrow and lungs, making every breath taste of iron and dust. The silver brilliance that had once torn through the chamber had folded back into itself, retreating like a tide, yet silence did not reclaim the space it left behind. Silence itself had changed.
