Night in the World of Stillness
carries no threat.
No screams.
No watchtowers.
No sky watching from above.
And that…
was what made the pain harsher.
Kim sat alone by the river.
The water reflected the moonlight with a calm that provoked anger,
as if it were mocking him.
He extended his hand over the surface.
Touched it.
The sensation was delayed.
A fraction of a second…
but it was enough to make him feel that his body was no longer entirely his.
He clenched his fist.
Black veins pulsed violently.
The pain climbed from his arm to his shoulder,
then to his neck,
then to his head.
He pressed his temples.
"…Enough."
Nothing responded.
He tried to close his left eye.
The hands inside it were invisible…
but they were there.
He could feel them,
turning…
then stopping…
then turning in the opposite direction.
Time was no longer a line.
It had become a knife.
He saw a scene.
Jack…
standing before him, laughing.
Then the same scene,
Jack falling.
Then a third scene,
Jack never having been born at all.
Kim gasped sharply.
He bent forward
and vomited.
It was not blood.
Nor darkness.
It was… nothing.
Emptiness spilling out of his body.
He trembled.
Tried to stand…
and collapsed to his knees.
The pain was no longer unbearable
because it was intense…
but because it was constant.
With no peak.
No end.
He heard footsteps behind him.
He did not turn.
He said in a broken voice:
"I told you…"
"Stay away from me."
The sound did not answer.
It came closer.
Sat down.
He knew him without looking.
It was Neer.
Kim said sharply,
"Go."
"Before—"
He stopped.
Because he did not know what would happen if Neer stayed.
Kim bent further forward.
His hands on the ground.
His nails dug into the dirt.
His voice came out shattered:
"…I can't stop it."
Silence fell.
Neer did not ask, "What is it?"
He did not ask, "Why?"
He only said:
"I know."
Kim let out a short laugh,
then it turned into something else.
Something closer to suffocation.
"No…"
he said, shaking his head.
"You don't."
He raised his head for the first time.
Looked at Neer.
His eyes were red.
His face taut with pain.
The blackness had reached halfway up his neck.
"I…"
He stopped.
Tried to breathe.
"I erased cities,"
he finally said.
"Worlds."
Neer did not move.
"I killed angels,"
Kim continued.
"I erased them from existence…
as if they had never been."