Darkness had a sound.
I never knew that until someone tied a strip of black cloth over my eyes and the world disappeared. Not completely... just enough to make every other sense wake up angry. Footsteps echoed somewhere ahead of me. Slow. Measured. More than one pair. Leather against old stone. The quiet rustle of fabric. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. Whoever had caught me outside that door already knew I wasn't going anywhere.
A hand rested lightly against the middle of my back.
Not rough.
Not gentle.
Just certain.
I hated certainty.
I let them lead me anyway.
My shoes scraped across uneven stone, then polished wood, then stone again. We turned left. Right. Down what felt like stairs. The air grew cooler the farther we went. Damp. Ancient. The kind of cold that lived inside buil
