There is a pattern to the silence; a rhythm of rolling nothing that surrounds them, enrobes them in whispers that die before they reach the lips. Enforced reverence, perhaps, or technology meant for less religious bents, but here and now it serves to mask the temple from the profanity of life.

No footsteps, no breath, no heartbeat echoing loud beneath the skin, makes it past those winds that strip away a sense they’d never focused on. But now, in the silence, unnatural and unnerving, they grasp after it in rising panic.

But the Gods sit cold and silent, enthroned in stone and held to that one eternal truth: They are not there to listen.