There is no sound after that.
Not silence, because even silence requires a listener.
If there is time, it does not move.
If there is space, it does not open itself.
Artor Conan Davil no longer stands.
He also does not fall.
He does not feel his body, but he has not lost consciousness either. There is no pain. There is no peace. There is no fear. This state is not calm, but the absence of any reason to feel anything.
Then,
something happens.
Or it does not.
There is light, or only the memory of light. There is weight on the chest, or only the concept of breath. Something presses down, or perhaps that pressure was never truly gone.
He opens his eyes.
Or the world closes itself.
He hears a sound, whether it is a machine, a prayer, or his own name spoken by someone he cannot see. The sound carries no meaning. It only confirms that something is still ongoing.
If this is awakening, then the world feels foreign.
If this is the end, then it feels too ordinary.
There is no voice that says his repentance is accepted.
There is no voice that says he is rejected.
There is no voice at all.
And for the first time since he understood the concept of God, Artor Conan Davil does not wait for an answer.
He does not ask for a sign.
He does not bargain.
He does not defend himself, not even within his own thoughts.
If this is life, he will live without justification.
If this is death, he will die without a claim.
Because he finally understands something that was never taught to him directly:
That truth does not always arrive as an explanation.
Sometimes it arrives as the removal of the right to lie to oneself.
Then,
either the first breath is drawn,
or the final breath is released.
There are no witnesses.
There are no records.
There is no epilogue.
Because this story was never about what happened to the world.
It was always about what collapsed within a single soul,
and whether it collapsed honestly.