Chapter 38 Before Tomorrow

• Charles Harrison's POV
• There are certain kinds of silence that feel heavier than noise.
• I discovered that sometime after midnight while sitting alone in my apartment with every light switched off except the lamp beside the couch, staring through floor-to-ceiling windows at a city that refused to sleep. Thousands of people were still awake somewhere out there. Cars moved through distant streets. Neon signs glowed against the darkness. Apartment windows flickered with life. The world continued exactly as it always had. Yet somehow it felt as though everything had paused around me.