He dared not wake.
If there could be an eternal dream, he would rather never wake again for the rest of his life.
But at last, he opened his eyes, and when he climbed up from the ground,
the silence around him was as cold as ice.
Wine bottles lay everywhere, amid all the wreckage left by the revelry. A few days earlier, at this hour, someone would always be muttering complaints about how strong Dark Night City's liquor was, someone would be covering their mouth to stifle a laugh, and someone would still be snoring. They were only drunken snores, yet they were louder than thunder in the heavens.
But today...
Little by little, he raised his head.
So quiet.
So quiet...
The Feather Pen came in and helped him up. She kept her head lowered, biting her lip, but when she saw his lifeless eyes, she finally could not help pulling him into a tight embrace.
Just as she had so long ago.
Tears shimmered in her eyes as she held back her sobs.
She wanted to say something to him, but when all those words reached her lips, she could not get any of them out.
But he felt it nonetheless.
Even her power was dwindling, little by little. The immense power she wielded over fate was also slipping, slowly and inevitably, into the abyss.
Perhaps this was simply what fate had decreed.
After that day, she followed him everywhere. Wherever he went, she trailed at a distance, as though afraid he might do something reckless, or driven by some unspeakable loneliness.
But Lynn had not spoken to her in a long time.
It was as though he had forgotten she existed.
Every day, he appeared among the shattered ruins of Dark Night City, wandering