Chapter 74: The Drowned Heart
The descent was not a fall, but a dissolution into a symphony of absence. The psychic braid of their consciousness Elara's seeking clarity, Kaelen's unwavering focus, the echoes of Lyra's song and Aurora's trust plunged through layers of nothing that had texture and intent. It was cold that wasn't temperature, but the removal of warmth. It was silence that wasn't quiet, but the negation of sound.
Around their streaking presence, the void reacted. It did not attack. It tasted. Tendrils of interested negation, like the pseudopods of some vast, dark amoeba, extended to brush against their condensed knot of meaning. Where they touched, Elara felt memories thin: the specific scent of the cottage's lavender blurring toward a generic concept of 'scent,' the sharp joy of Lyra's first laugh softening toward the idea of 'joy.' The void was trying to generalize them, to reduce their specific, storied love to a category it could file away and ignore.
