The air was still. Not quiet—still, like the moment before a breath, or the silence of a corpse before rot sets in. The Void did not hum, did not whisper. It watched. A dim silver glow pulsed from the cracks in the walls, veins of impossible light threading through the black stone like something alive, or pretending to be.

And there he was.

Coiled loosely at the center of the corridor, half-submerged in shadow, Henry Miller barely moved. His head tilted as if listening to something that wasn’t there. Black scales caught the silver light with a subtle shimmer—each shift of his tail across the floor silent, deliberate. His eyes, rimmed in magenta, blinked just once.

The Void pulsed with him. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

He did not speak, not yet. He simply waited—serene, terrible. His presence stretched across the space like a net, invisible but undeniable. There was no door. No exit. Only him.