The world didn't end with some dramatic explosion or tragic final speech. It ended with the smell of old cedar, a stupidly heavy fur blanket, and the kind of terrifying peace Cherion had forgotten people could actually feel.
When he finally cracked his eyes open, the whole room was soaked in that lazy golden late-afternoon sunlight. The brutal mountain cold stayed trapped outside the thick log walls, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the constant angry static in Cherion's brain had just… shut up.
Seriously. Gone.
Like somebody had finally walked up to a TV that had been blasting white noise for six straight months and yanked the plug out of the wall. The silence was so intense it almost made his ears ring.
Cherion didn't move. Mostly because he physically couldn't.
