*Gabriel*
The city is quiet now, but it’s not a peaceful kind of quiet. It’s the silence after screaming that hums in your ears and presses on you like a yoke you can’t lift.
Smoke clings to the bitter air, and the sea licks at the mangled shoreline with false gentleness. The same water that swallowed the streets now retreats in regret.
I move through the rubble, my shoulder throbbing with every step. Something must be torn beneath the skin, perhaps cracked. I felt it when I braced against a wall and caught the edge of a collapsing beam. My ribs ache from being thrown across the stone streets, and my legs are bruised and cut open in places I haven’t even looked at yet. Alas, I still move, and I still search.
My voice is almost gone from shouting her name. “Sabrina!” The sound of it
