The walk back was silent.
Not the comfortable silence Alex had shared with Granite a hundred times before. This was the silence of aftermath. The silence of a thing that had happened and couldn't be undone, of a world that had shifted slightly and would never quite shift back.
Alex felt the absence of System with every step.
It wasn't just the lack of System's voice—though that was bad enough, the silence where there should have been commentary, analysis, the constant low hum of information that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. It was the absence of presence. The sense that someone was there, at the edge of his awareness, watching, waiting, ready to help.
He hadn't realized how much he'd come to rely on that presence until it was gone.
Granite walked beside him, close enough that their arms almost touched. The bear didn't speak. He didn't need to. His presence was enough—solid, grounded, real in a way that the shadow hadn't been.
