Semua Bab Claimed by Death : Bab 41 - Bab 50

Kieran’s Point of View Distance is a discipline. It is not absence. It is not cruelty. It is the deliberate maintenance of space so that function remains intact and consequence stays predictable. I have practiced it longer than most things have existed. This should be simple. I leave the dream space before it finishes thinning. I withdraw my presence with care, sealing the edges so no trace lingers that the system might notice. By the time her waking world fully asserts itself, I am already elsewhere. That is how it is supposed to work. And yet the pull does not vanish cleanly. It loosens, yes. It releases its grip enough that I can stand without feeling drawn forward. But it leaves behind an echo, a pressure that settles under my ribs and refuses to be named. I move through the corridors of order and feel it with me. Silence does not settle the way it should. The system hums, steady and precise, but my attention does not align with it. My awareness keeps returning to

Nora's Point of View The decision does not arrive all at once. It settles. Quietly. Firmly. With the same steady pull that has been guiding me since the morning I woke knowing what we shared was real. I move through the evening with intention, but not expectation. I don’t rush. I don’t linger. I wash my mug. I straighten the blanket on the couch. I choose my nightgown deliberately, soft cotton that feels familiar against my skin. When I slide beneath the covers, I lie on my back with my hands resting loosely at my sides, eyes open to the dark. I am not certain he will come. What I feel is not assurance. It is longing held carefully enough that it doesn’t turn into demand. He trusted me first. What he offered without asking still lives in me, warm and undeniable. I don’t chase the memory. I don’t try to summon him. I let myself want him without reaching. Sleep comes the way it always does when I stop forcing it. Gently. The shift is subtle. Sound stretches. The room loosen

Nora’s Point of View Nothing collapses. That’s what surprises me. I wake the next morning expecting something sharper, regret maybe, or a sense of having crossed a line I can’t step back over without consequence. Instead, the day arrives intact. The light is ordinary. The air feels the same. My body is rested, not aching, not restless. There is no lingering heat under my skin, no urgency pressing at the edges of my thoughts. If anything, I feel muted. Not sad. Not empty. Just quieter in a way that feels new. I move through my morning routines without resistance. I make tea, rinse my mug, stand at the window long enough to register the street below without really seeing it. I am present, just not as vivid as I was yesterday. The certainty is still there. That hasn’t changed. I don’t doubt what happened, and I don’t reinterpret it in the harsh light of morning the way I’ve done with other things in my life. It was real. It was chosen. It mattered. But it doesn’t echo. That

Nora’s Point of View The first sign is not urgency. It is recognition. I am standing in line at the pharmacy when it happens. Fluorescent lights. A squeaking cart wheel somewhere behind me. A child whining softly in the aisle to my left. Ordinary. The woman in front of me turns slightly, just enough for her face to come into view. And I know. Not in the way I know cards or patterns. In the way you know when someone is holding something too heavy alone. She is not crying. Her posture is upright, careful. One hand grips the edge of the counter as if anchoring herself to something solid. The other fumbles with her wallet, fingers stiff with distraction. There is a tremor there. Small. Contained. I feel it in my chest like a pressure change. This is the moment. The kind I used to respond to without thinking. The kind that never announced itself with drama or spectacle. Just quiet need, brushing past. I do nothing. The realization lands immediately. I am choosing not to. She fin

Nora’s Point of View He doesn’t sit right away. That’s the first thing I notice. Most people do. They arrive already tired, already braced for whatever might come, and they lower themselves into the chair across from me as if settling into a role they’ve rehearsed on the way here. He stays near the door instead, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the room like he’s checking for exits he doesn’t plan to use. “I don’t really know how this works,” he says. “That’s fine,” I tell him. “You don’t have to.” He nods, but doesn’t move. I wait. Eventually, he exhales and takes the seat across from me, posture careful, as if sitting too comfortably would feel like a betrayal of the reason he’s here. The cards rest on the table between us. Aligned. Quiet. He looks at them once. Then away. “I keep thinking I should have known what to do,” he says after a moment. “I keep thinking I should have seen something earlier.” The words come out evenly, but there’s strain beneath them. Not pani