The highway lay stretched beneath the weight of midnight like a forgotten vein of the city, its long, empty road glistening faintly under distant lights, while the silence that surrounded it was not peace but absence, a hollow stillness that seemed to wait, and within that waiting there came the low hum of an engine that did not rush, did not falter, but moved with quiet certainty, as though its destination had already been decided long before the journey began.
The vehicle came to a slow halt at the edge of the road, its headlights cutting through the darkness before fading into stillness, and for a moment nothing moved, nothing breathed, nothing disturbed the fragile quiet that lay over the land like a thin layer of dust.
Then—
The door opened.
And he stepped out.
