The predator does not attack.
That is the first sign something has changed.
Days pass without pressure building at the edges of my awareness. No sharp pull. No prowling weight testing the boundary like a hand against glass. The world does not brace the way it did before. There are no tremors of intent, no flaring warning that something vast is leaning too close.
Instead, there is quiet.
Not peace. Not safety.
Quiet with shape.
I notice it the way you notice a missing tooth with your tongue, a gap you keep returning to without meaning to. A hollow in the air that doesn’t push back when I step into it.
“This place feels wrong,” Adam says one morning as we walk a familiar trail. He stops, frowns, then looks back the way we came. “Did we take a turn?”
“No,” I answer immediately.
“You
