Atlas kept floating, the air around him heavy with the aftertaste of the explosion. Shards of rock still spun lazily in the thickening smoke, bits of shattered stone glinting in the dim light like fragments of a dying star.
The sound was a low, constant hiss — debris grinding in the air as if the world was chewing on its own ruins.
The acrid scent of burnt sulfur clung to his lungs, each breath scratching down his throat. Somewhere behind that gray curtain, the battlefield's edges were dissolving, shapes fading in and out as though reality itself was deciding what to keep.
"Aurora…?" Atlas's voice was steady, but it carried that slight echo of uncertainty he hated letting slip.
"Atlas…" she replied, her tone both answer and tether — a confirmation that she was still there, pressed against him, part of the weight he carried.
He scanned the swirling haze, eyes narrowing, as if he could push the fog back through will alone. "Are they still watching us?"
