Silence.
That was the first thing I noticed. The heavy, aching silence of a world without breath. No wind. No sound. Just an endless hum of stillness that settled into my bones like frost.
Elias was gone.
One second, he was in my arms, alive, bleeding, whispering my name, and the next, I was alone in a void that stretched on forever. My hands trembled as I looked around, hoping, praying, for a sign of him. A spark. A heartbeat. A whisper.
Nothing.
I screamed. Loud and raw and desperate.
It echoed back, a thousand versions of my voice folding into one another until it became something monstrous.
“Where is he?” I cried out into the nothingness. “Bring him back! I did what you wanted!”
The void didn’t answer.
But something else did.
A ripple of heat cut through the air. The emptines
