The silence lasted exactly long enough to become unbearable.
Three seconds of an arena full of people saying absolutely nothing, the specific silence of several hundred minds all arriving at the same question at the same time and none of them having an answer for it.
Then the questions started coming all at once.
"What just happened." Flat. Genuinely asking.
"Did he." Someone else, not finishing the sentence because the sentence did not have a comfortable ending.
"Is he." Another unfinished one, from a different section.
"Wait." Just that. One word. From somewhere near the front. The specific wait of a person whose brain had received information and was requesting more time to process it before committing to a reaction.
"Someone tell me what I just watched." The analytical voice from the upper section, and this was the first time all night that voice had lost its composure entirely.
"Marcus is on the floor." Said slowly, carefully, like naming it would help make it real.
