The city had fallen into a strange rhythm, a silence that carried the weight of millions.
It was not the silence of peace, nor even of sleep. It was the silence of a body holding its breath before drowning.
The streets, once alive with noise, arguments, markets, and sirens, had dimmed into a background hum, punctuated by the occasional crash of glass or the distant roar of a desperate crowd. But mostly, it was absence. A hollow void where life had been.
In that absence, Lassen sat in his old studio, the same four walls that had once confined his failures and his escape. The chair creaked beneath him, the blanket draped over his shoulders heavy with memories, not warmth. On the desk, the mug of hot chocolate had gone cold, untouched, a reminder of the small rituals he clung to even as the world dissolved.
