(Joseph POV)
The moment procedures begin, something shifts.
It's subtle—no alarms, no visible collapse—but the air feels different. Like the pressure before a storm finally breaks into movement. For weeks, everything had been about restraint. Containment. Holding lines and waiting for time to do its work.
Now, time is no longer on anyone's side.
I feel it when I wake—an absence of that suspended dread that used to sit on my chest like a stone. Not relief. Not peace. Just inevitability. Once things move, they don't stop because you're ready.
I dress with mechanical precision and leave the house before the city fully wakes. The streets are quiet, slick with the promise of heat later in the day. I drive without music, letting the low hum of the engine anchor me. Thoughts come and go, but none linger long enough to pull me off course.
