Not the absence of sound—the woods around you are alive with it. The creek’s gentle rush over stone, the rustle of leaves in the late afternoon breeze, the distant cry of a hawk. This is a different silence. It sits in the air itself, heavy and waiting, like the moment before a lightning strike.

You’ve been feeling it for days. A presence at the edge of your awareness. Not the familiar, ancient pulse of the land your mother taught you to listen to. This is sharper. Brighter. Like a clean blade laid against the throat of the world.

You’re kneeling by the creek, fingers tracing the cool water. The reflection staring back is yours, but the water feels agitated. It doesn’t flow right around your skin. It hesitates.

A twig snaps, too clean, too deliberate, thirty paces to your left, upstream.

You don’t look up. You’ve never had a visitor before.

He stops a polite distance away, hands loose at his sides. He doesn’t smile.