The world did not pause to acknowledge completion.
There was no lull in news cycles.
No institutional announcement marking transition.
No sense that something had ended.
If anything, the days that followed felt more ordinary than the ones before.
That was how Aaliyah knew the shift had held.
She noticed it first in what no longer arrived.
No escalation emails flagged as urgent.
No last-minute requests framed as emergencies.
No quiet attempts to reopen questions that had already been answered through record.
Silence, now, had boundaries.
And boundaries changed behavior more reliably than pressure ever had.
Aaliyah returned to the foundation two weeks after the final review session, not because she was needed, but because she wanted to see it functioning without her proximity.
The halls felt the same.
People moved with purpose, conversations low and focused. Whiteboards held timelines, not aspirations. Logs were updated without ceremony.
