The silver hung at the horizon like a thought that had decided to become visible.
Thirty-eight kilometres of desert lay between Lucifer and that quiet point of light, and the distance did nothing to soften the memory of being driven through a mountain range with the casual finality of a door closing.
He stood where the sand still remembered displacement, the air warm and dry, the silence layered and ancient, and decided that waiting for that terrifying void to approach him would be a posture of surrender he did not care to adopt.
Lucifer Morningstar had always preferred to walk toward his problems.
He began moving.
The desert unfolded beneath his steps in long, slow breaths of heat.
The Negev did what deserts did best -- it was utterly uncaring.
The absence behind him, where a mountain range had once stood, carried no echo of catastrophe, only a wide flattening of earth where stone had surrendered to force and settled into quiet resignation.
