The silence that followed the final gunshot was absolute. It wasn't the peaceful silence of a sleeping forest; it was a heavy, suffocating vacuum that felt more deafening than the explosion of the weapon itself.
Dayat stood frozen in the pitch-black heart of The Wailing Woods, his boots sunk deep into the sulfurous mire. The matte-black SMG in his hands—a masterpiece of terrestrial logic—didn't fall to the ground. Instead, it began to fray at the edges, its solid form dissolving into a swarm of golden-purple particles. They danced in the air like digital fireflies before being whisked away by the cold wind, leaving behind only a lingering, razor-sharp scent of ozone, burnt insulation, and acrid gunpowder.
