The irregular clapping was a disharmonious pulse, within the quiet space. It. Overcame the emptiness nor broke the flow. It merely refused to be erased from their presence. In that refusal the perfect closed system of submission created a feedback cycle it couldn't untangle.
The tainted energy, from the malfunctioning circuit—the essence of a lullaby—had been leaking, degrading Geneva's resolve. At this point Devon's erratic senseless behavior injected a frequency into the circuit. Not a balancing tone,. Mere interference. The ghostly parallel of shouting into a microphone connected to a fading amplifier.
The active circuit started to lose stability.
The luminous filaments didn't merely flicker; they whipped wildly striking like lashes. The calm expressions of the preserved finally shattered.
Kale Kane's eyes empty, for weeks abruptly clenched shut. From his mouth came a deep throaty groan—not one of agony. Of intense soul-shaking confusion as though the calm philosophical state he'd been drifting within had vanished and he was falling back into the irreducible mysteries.
Next to him Lise Vogel, the artist shuddered violently. Her hands, motionless shot up to her temples fingers digging in, as though attempting to rip away the eerie exquisite images of emptiness that had occupied her thoughts.
Alain Mercier snapped awake his logistics-manager mind trying to grasp a system—his awareness—that had been shut down its functions paused. He darted his gaze around the room perceiving not a design but a disordered frightening spectacle.
The one who yelled was Alistair Croft.
A primal torn sound of treachery. It was the cry of a man who had been presented with the flawless demonstration had embraced it had settled into tranquility with the Q.E.D.—only to have the page ripped the reasoning jumbled and his mind forcefully thrust out of its hard-earned calm. He fell onto his side curling into a posture sobbing with the anguish of a paradise shattered.
They did not awaken to clarity. Instead they woke into the trauma of coming. The soft intact calm was torn apart substituted by a overwhelming flood of sensation, memory and lingering anguish. They were survivors of a shipwreck struggling for breath on the coast of a reality they had mentally and spiritually denied.
The device, created to synchronize their will was currently intensifying their shared turbulent anguish. The buzz transformed into a scream of psychic feedback cycles—bewilderment, fear, treachery, the torment of nerves awakening after a prolonged frigid slumber.
The abyss, within Belphegor trembled fiercely. The serene and exquisite possibility now mirrored not tranquility but a discordant uproar of exposed, injured existence. It started to twist collapsing inward as though shunned by the existence it was supposed to supplant.
Flavio remained in the midst of the unfolding turmoil his expression one of despair. He observed his saints fail to ascend instead contorting in pain. His compassion had turned into torment. His tranquil plan had become the reason, for the cries.
"What did you do?" he murmured, not to Devon. To the cosmos. "You restored the injury to them."
Devon ceased applauding, his palms dropping listlessly by his sides. He observed the casualties shifting, yelling, holding their heads. He sensed no victory. Just a nauseating surge of remorse. He had battled for the agonizing world and he had prevailed. This was the reality. Not champions rising renewed but shattered spirits being forcefully restarted into their torment.
Hugo Hubert and Luna Lorelei released from the grip of the time-syrup as the circuit's energy broke hurried into the chamber. However they did not assault Devon. Instead they approached the victims attempting to soothe them to restore the order that had just collapsed. Luna clasped the trembling epidemiologist with tenderness. Hugo endeavored to whisper axioms, to Croft yet the don's cries overwhelmed his voice.
The Grand Conjunction had ended. It hadn't brought a period of peace. Instead it sparked a tempest of revived suffering. The cycle was shattered its sufferers aware, distressed and adrift.. The void, the alluring escape had vanished—fading away like a dream after an abrupt merciless awakening.
Devon had saved the world from sleep. And as he looked at the weeping, broken forms around him, he wondered if, in his desperate refusal of perfect peace, he had merely condemned everyone to a louder, more conscious hell. The choice had been his. And this was the cost. Not silence, but the terrible, echoing sound of wounds reopened.