CHAPTER XI - Whispers of Light

Before the sun rose, before even the static of the world returned, the air shimmered.

Not with light.

Not with sound.

With resonance.

The ruins of the hydroelectric complex still slept beneath the pale remains of night while the surviving line rested among fractured arches and silent turbine chambers. Wind no longer moved through the structures with the cold emptiness it carried before. Something softer had entered the atmosphere after the first dreams. Even the darkness itself felt altered now, less like absence and more like waiting.