Something, yes... something was slowly rising in me, not in a jolt, not in a scream, not even in the painful burst of a sob, but like black water rising from the depths of a consciousness frozen for too long. It wasn't anger. It was no longer a call. It wasn't a surge of pride or a remnant of hatred. It was something else. A kind of defeat.
A dense, ancient, sticky capitulation, rooted in my vertebrae, infiltrated into my bones, heavier than remorse and more vivid than fear. A defeat without scream, without face, without word, but which my whole being recognized in the clammy silence that enveloped me.
