He left the room as the first edge of dawn paled the sky.
The streets were empty, but there were signs of others — footprints in the ash, the faint smell of smoke from a distant fire.
Survivors passed through the ruins, scavengers or refugees, ghosts in their own way.
Dorian walked to the riverbank and sat on a broken slab of stone.
The water moved sluggishly, carrying bits of debris — a splinter of wood, a torn scrap of cloth.
His scarf slipped loose and fluttered in the morning breeze.
For a long time he just sat there, staring at the water as though it might speak.
It didn't.
His thoughts drifted, unhurried, like the river itself.
"It would be simple. Step into the water. Let the current take me. I've seen too much. There's nothing left to see."
I felt that thought settle deep inside him like a stone sinking into the riverbed.
It was not a decision.
Not yet.
Just the slow acceptance that the end would come not with a cry, but with a quiet surrender.
I stood beside him in the silence of his mind and whispered:
"You stayed alive for a reason. You just don't know it yet."
He didn't react.
Didn't look up.
His eyes remained on the slow, dark water.
Above us, the first light of day slipped over the shattered rooftops, fragile and thin as a brushstroke of pale gold on a ruined canvas.