Intro. There was something in the air that year. Not the smell, but a change in its density, like before a thunderstorm that never breaks. It was as if the universe had made a subtle shift in settings, and the usual light began to fall at a different angle.
They said it was all because of him. New. The fact that he entered not through the door, but into the fabric of reality, leaving behind light ripples on the surface of everyday life. But it wasn't just him. It was about them. In that strange pair of charges that, having met, did not produce a flash, but only extinguished all the sounds around, creating a zone of viscous, inexplicable silence.
It's hard to say what it was. Love? The word was too loud and hot for the icy radiance that arose between them. Hatred? Too easy. It was something third. Something for which the language does not have a term. A state similar to what would happen if two mirrors were placed opposite each other - and instead of multiplying reflections, they began to absorb light, creating between themselves a black, bottomless, perfect void.