In the days that followed, every soul out on the boundless sea saw the flash of the Black Sun — that false sunlight spread and smothered the world.
Behind the Creation of the World, the last lighthouse upon this ocean cast its light into every corner of the sanctuaries, and the glow lasted for many days and nights.
People speculated about the source of that “radiance.” Some thought it a sign the world was collapsing further; some thought the Creation itself was changing in some way.
The last optimists said it was the sunlight about to return to the mortal realm; the last pessimists said all things had come to the time of death.
But for more of the “people”... they did not care about that light.
Entities that had lost self-awareness stumbled through the city under mist and night, blindly committing mindless acts.
They gnawed and tore at whatever food their “perception” told them existed.
Deep, guttural roars seemed to fill the whole world, and from the city-state’s underground there came layer upon layer of murmurs and whispers.
On the sea, vast shadows rose and shrank without pattern, gathering toward the city’s shoreline.