Judge sat where the light had left him.
The ground beneath him was still warm in places, heat lingering in the cracked earth like the memory of a hand that had been there too long. Ash clung to his clothes. It dusted his fingers when he rested them against the soil, turning his skin gray, as if the world was already trying to reclaim him.
He did not move, he didn't even try to. The world felt scary all of a sudden.
Breathing came easily now. Too easily. His chest rose and fell with a steadiness that felt foreign, almost offensive. A short while ago, there had been nothing. No pain, no fear, no weight. Just absence. Now everything had returned at once, heavy and loud and insistent.
Life had a way of doing that. It never crept back gently. It always slammed the door open.
Judge stared at his hands.
