And then the wave passed Bruce.
It washed over the three of them, and Bruce flinched, on pure instinct, expecting the same dissolution to take him. But it did not.
The wave moved through his soul-body like a gust of cool wind, neither hurting him nor helping him, just acknowledging him and moving on. He understood, in some dim part of his thoughts, that the wave knew the difference. It knew what to take and what to leave. It had been calibrated for hollows only. The awakened souls inside its path were not its prey.
The wave faded out into the deep grey beyond, and was gone.
The three of them stood alone.
---
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Bruce had heard since arriving in the Soul Realm.
No shrieks. No clutching hands. No press of cold bodies. Just the slow drift of the mist and the distant fading echo of the bell.
For a long moment, none of them moved.
