My brain didn't crash; it just went into power-saving mode, processing the world at roughly four frames per second.
Jake had told me to close my eyes. His voice had sounded like gravel spinning in a blender, a low, scraped-out vibration that didn't belong to a human throat.
But I didn't close them. My eyelids felt rusted open, locked into place by a sheer, stubborn refusal to miss the punchline of whatever cosmic joke I had just landed myself in.
Inside my head, the silence was absolute.
The internal committee was gone.
No Panic screaming about the exit routes.
No Voice of Reason pointing out the statistical probability of my imminent demise.
No Adventurer trying to look on the bright side, and definitely no Femme Fatale.
They had all evacuated the premises, leaving behind a col
