The breach platform was quieter than it had ever been. Not silent, never silent, but quiet in a way that unsettled every nerve in those who remained there. The familiar symphony of catastrophe was missing. The usual hum of failing anchors that throbbed like a second pulse; the static-laced whine of interference that had gnawed at their sleep for months; the grinding metallic shrieks that scraped down the corridors like nails on glass and had, against all odds, become the closest thing they knew to lullabies, all of it was gone.
In its absence lay something uncanny. Not silence. Never silence. But a resonance that ran steady and deep, so unnaturally calm it almost tricked the mind into mistaking it for breath. It wasn't machinery. It wasn't even music. It was presence.
