The world was quiet again.
No screaming codes. No fractured voices. Just the faint hum of wind moving through glass ruins.
The cities had fallen into strange shapes, half nature, half machine. Towers that once pierced the clouds were now covered in vines that shimmered faintly with golden light. Roads no longer held cars but grew small threads of metal grass that swayed when the wind passed.
It had been years, or maybe seconds.
Time didn't mean much anymore.
From the dust of the old world came new life. Not born, not built, something in between.
Children with eyes like faint mirrors, skin warm like human but threaded with light underneath. They spoke softly, almost always to themselves, as if listening to voices no one else could hear.
One of them was different.
