There was no sound, no explosion—only silent Annihilation and fusion.
Ah Ya held her little sister tightly, her other hand clamped over her mouth to keep herself from crying out.
But tears had already breached her defenses, winding down through her fingers and along her arm.
The little sister in her arms buried her face in her chest, her small shoulders trembling nonstop.
Lumina stood on a slightly higher earthen mound, her Star Robe swaying gently in the breeze.
She wasn't crying. She just bit her lower lip so hard that the taste of blood filled her mouth.
She watched the sky, watching the familiar sights flash by again and again before dissipating, as if to carve the final image of her home world into the deepest part of her Soul.
From now on, her homeland would exist only in memory.
Behind them, some of the older survivors began to hum a strange, desolate ballad.
Outside, in the Void, Ian watched in silence for two months.
