Three days later—
Crack… Crackle…
"Ughmm…"
A groan escaped the withered lips of the blind old man as his senses slowly returned to him. He stirred, attempting instinctively to push himself up with his right arm—
But there was nothing there.
Nothing to push with.
Nothing to feel.
He paused.
"...So it wasn't just a nightmare after all..." he whispered hoarsely, then slowly raised his only remaining hand—his left—and covered his face.
What settled over him wasn't just pain.
It was a fatigue so ancient, so deep, that it seemed to stretch back to the dawn of creation.
A heaviness not of the body, but of time.
Tens of millions of years of service, of sacrifice, of purpose without recognition.
Tens of millions of years spent stabilizing the cosmic threads...
Tens of millions fending off the hungering beasts of the void...
Tens of millions confronting tyrants who tried to warp the laws for their own greed...
