Panic set in.
It did not scream, or roar, or even wail.
No.
It settled?
A silence
Perfectly thick and complete that the breath caught in a thousand throats. The sound of life, of heartbeat and murmur, of laughter and cruelty, died a perfect death.
And in its place?
Dread.
A perfect, suffocating dread.
The arena, prior a coliseum of bloodthirsty celebration, became a temple of fear. Veterans of a hundred battles clutched their chests. Mages recoiled from spells they could no longer hold.
Children cried not from pain, but from some ancestral terror passed down in blood—the fear of oblivion.
It was the feeling of a warrior as the blade kissed his throat.
Of a mage moments too late to deflect the fire.
Of a mother watching her child die and realizing there was nothing left to pray to.
Even among those who had never known death, the instinct struck like lightning: This is where I end.
