The moment she spoke, the world cracked.
Not loud. Not violent. Just... different. The wind stalled mid-gust. Snowflakes hovered, unmoving, as if the air itself had turned solid, and the burrower stalled mid-glide, stuck inside a ripple it hadn't finished. Even the sound of breath vanished.
Time hadn't stopped. It had obeyed.
And I—
I felt something I wasn't sure I could anymore.
Fear.
Not panic. Not the sharpened instinct that comes before a kill. Actual fear. The kind that slides under your skin, coils around your spine, and makes you feel small in a way that nothing physical ever could.
I didn't know I could still feel it. Not like this. Not real fear.
Maybe something had buried it in me long ago. Maybe it had only been waiting for the right kind of silence to return.
...Then she appeared.
She didn't walk in. Didn't descend. She just... was. Like the world had always included her, and I was only now seeing the part it had kept hidden.
