The first few minutes after Void spoke were a blur. Not relief - something far more disorienting, like being told the building didn't collapse yet, but it's still groaning, unstable. The threat has merely paused. Long enough to catch its breath and - with enough bad luck - come back for more.

Keira didn't have it in her to cry anymore. Her eyes burned, her throat scraped with something unshed, her body locked. Frozen in a crooked, back-wrecking hunch, half-slumped against the wall. A twisted half-prayer of a posture that spoke of desperation, disbelief, and a furious refusal to let go...

"Nah bitch, you don't get to save my ass and then disappear like I was just another one of your stupid chores. It's time someone taught you a fucking lesson."

Her tram was late. Welcome to the wonderful city of Szczecin, 2038 - where "infrastructure" was a euphemism and "always on time" meant "sometime this week." The schedule flickered overhead like a broken promise, glitching between seizure-bright ads and yet another "service will resume shortly." Might as well have been the city's tagline, really. That, and "We Care." Which was funny, coming from a place that could barely keep its heating on or its citizens off the edge. "Floating Garden 2050," she thought, rolling her eyes so hard she almost saw her brain, "a cheap-ass marketing slogan for a fucking dumpster fire."...

The water had cooled.

Clouded, crimson liquid was swallowing the painted metal beneath it. Not the clean, cinematic type - no soft swirls or poetic tendrils. Just a steady bleed into warmth that had long since stopped steaming. It sat there like silence incarnate, thick and waiting, scarlet that didn't beg for attention - it demanded it. But this wasn't a cry for help - it was resignation, pure and simple. A surrender written in the only language her body still cared to speak...

The cycle began anew. "Another day, another disappointment," she thought.

The sun slithered through the slats of the blinds, casting pale lines across the floorboards and up the edge of Void's bed. Her bedsheets had slipped halfway off in the night, tangled around her legs like a net she didn't even bother escaping. She stared at the ceiling, eyes dry & aching, lips slightly parted as if a piece of her still expected breath to feel like something other than a chore...

Void walked away from Keira with a grin stapled to her face, the kind that said, "Look at me, emotionally functional and completely normal, haha, just fucking kill me." Keira had waved, tossed her a wink, and disappeared behind the garage's sliding door, blissfully unaware of the emotional crater left behind. Not her fault - Void had made sure of that...