Isaac made eye contact with Seraphina's piercing blue eyes and froze, but nothing happened.
No illusions.
No spiral of fractured reality.
No voice crawling into his skull.
Just silence. Stillness. The world holding its breath around them.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, they simply stared at each other.
Isaac's stance was low and cautious, knees slightly bent, his lone right arm half-raised in defence. His chest heaved from the earlier beating. Sweat dripped from his chin and hit the concrete floor with a faint tick.
Seraphina, two metres away, stood poised like a dancer in the middle of a stage. Elegant posture. Chin lifted. One foot subtly angled back - ready to strike again.
He gambled.
He had to.
'There's no victory waiting for me if I keep playing dead with my eyes shut,' he reasoned internally. 'I know I'll get beaten blind. But opening them? That's uncertain. Could be death… could be a chance.'
Uncertainty was better than certainty when certainty meant losing.
