When Alex saw the scene in front of him, he immediately grasped an overall impression of what had happened around him.
There was no confusion in his understanding, no frantic attempt to piece things together. The arrangement of bodies, the silence that lingered too heavily, the absence where presence should have been. It all formed a single, unmistakable conclusion in his mind. He did not need to look twice to know what he was seeing.
Both his wife and his best friend were gone.
The realization settled without resistance. It did not crash into him or demand a reaction. It simply existed, immovable and complete. A part of him wanted to reject it, to deny what his eyes confirmed so clearly, but that impulse never grew strong enough to matter. Denial required effort. Reality did not.
