POV: Scarlett Silence came first. Not the silence that follows noise, not the temporary, ringing quiet left behind by something loud. This was different. Older. The kind of silence that has no before and no after, that exists outside of time altogether, that doesn't feel like the absence of sound so much as the absence of everything. Scarlett existed inside it without weight, without sensation, without any awareness of where her body was or whether it was anywhere at all. Then a breath. Sharp. Involuntary. Her lungs seized and expanded before her mind had caught up, dragging air in like something that had been starved of it. The breath was followed immediately by pain, not specific pain, not localised, but total, the kind that arrives all at once and announces itself from every direction simultaneously. Alive. That was what pain meant. She held onto it. Her eyes opened. Light hit her too hard,white and uneven, coming from emergency fixtures and the gaps in surfaces that had be
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