A sudden, violent drop of stone that hit the floor with an impact that shook the ground hard enough to make them all stagger, that sent a shockwave through the stone beneath their feet like a physical blow delivered by something that wanted them to feel its weight, to understand in their bones that it was real and permanent and final.
The kind of impact that didn't just happen to the ears—it happened to the chest, to the teeth, to the hollow space behind the sternum where the body kept its most animal understanding of danger.
The displaced air hit their faces in a rushing wave that smelled of ancient dust and something metallic, something that suggested deep earth and deep time and places that hadn't been disturbed in millennia. It tasted of sealed rooms and forgotten centuries and the particular emptiness of spaces that had never expected to be breathed in again.
