The silence that followed the engine's roar was absolute. It was a vacuum of sound, as if the forest had inhaled and forgotten to exhale. The vibration of the engine—that low, bone-deep rumble that had defined my life for fifteen years—hadn't just faded; it had been severed.
"That's his bike," Marcus whispered. He stood motionless, his head c****d toward the darkness, his weapon lowered, not because the threat was gone, but because he was paralyzed by the impossible geometry of the sound.
"Then why did it stop?" Noah asked. His voice was barely a breath.
Nobody answered. We all stood in the unnatural snowfall, the white flakes drifting onto our jackets like ash, our hearts thundering in time with the silence. The forest felt expectant. It felt like a trap that had just been sprung, wait
