For years, he had wandered in search of the place where silence lived.
He found it at the edge of the world, where mountains gave way to clouds, and the wind no longer carried words. There, he sat. Not to speak. Not to move. Only to wait. Beneath a sky that churned with green fire, he listened to the great hush between stars, to the breath of clouds breaking open like thoughts too vast for language.
Time unraveled around him.
Eventually, the stillness shifted. Not in sound, but in shape. The sky ceased to be a ceiling. It became a current. That’s when he stood.
In the next moment, he was somewhere else, or perhaps someone else. No longer grounded, no longer watching. The auroras danced like veins across the dark. The world stretched wide and empty beneath his feet, but he did not felt alone.
He stepped forward, and the horizon did not resist.
The air shimmered, quiet but alive, and somewhere between his breath and the stars above, something vast and patient began to move, as if welcoming him into a language older than sound.