Chapter 36 — The Quiet Field
Lucien blinked once.
Then again.
His eyes snapped open.
The cold hardness of stone was gone. Instead, beneath his feet, there was softness—so real he could feel every blade bending beneath his weight.
The air smelled faintly of earth and dew, clean and sharp and alive.
He was standing. Somehow, impossibly, standing.
All around him stretched a field of grass—each blade perfectly trimmed, straight and even, like the finest carpet woven by invisible hands.
The kind of grass his father had kept.
He could almost hear his father's voice in his memory, quiet but firm, reminding him once more how the grass must never grow wild. How it had to be kept perfect.
The sky above was a deep, endless black.
Not dark. Not empty.
It was alive with stars.
Thousands, millions, a glittering sea spilling across the heavens, clearer and brighter than any night Lucien had ever known.
He could feel their light washing over him like a cool, gentle rain—pure and infinite.
The night breathed softly.
No wind rushed. No insects buzzed.
Only the faintest whisper of cool air drifting across the grass, like a lover's breath on skin.
The world was still, but it was not silent.
It hummed quietly with something tender and true.
Lucien's chest tightened—not from fear, or pain, or cold—but from something fragile and aching, buried deep beneath everything he'd lived through.
His heart thudded in a steady rhythm he could understand, like a distant drum calling him home.
The soft rustle of grass brushing together echoed faintly beneath that quiet wind.
He tried to move, but the field held him gently, as if it knew what he needed without words.
He lifted a hand, fingers trembling, and brushed the tips over the blades.
They felt like silk, cool and smooth, slipping through his fingers like water that could never be held.
A memory surfaced—his father's hands, rough but steady, kneeling down to smooth the edges of this very grass.
The thought pulled something taut inside him.
Something he hadn't allowed himself to feel in a long time.
Hope.
Not the bright, reckless hope of a child.
But a quieter kind—soft as the night wind.
He let his head tilt back, eyes tracing the stars.
Their light was cold, distant—but also unwavering.
A promise without words.
A steady pulse beneath the chaos.
The cool air brushed against his skin again, and a shiver ran down his spine—not from cold, but from the gentle insistence of this place.
He breathed slowly, deliberately, tasting the clean night air.
His thoughts returned, slow and cautious at first, then gathering strength like a fragile flame coaxed back to life.
He thought of his father again, how he would stand in this very field, quiet and watchful, feeling the night settle around him like a protective cloak.
Lucien's lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
The silence was not emptiness—it was space.
Space to remember.
Space to breathe.
Space to be.
He knelt down in the grass, letting it rise around him, a soft cradle that bore no weight.
His hands settled on the earth, and the roughness grounded him—reminding him he was real.
The stars blinked down like ancient eyes, patient and knowing.
His chest tightened again, a small pulse of warmth that rippled through the quiet ache inside.
The night air wrapped around him like a shield.
And for the first time in a long time, Lucien let the quiet wash over him.
Not with noise, or pain, or fear.
But with something delicate.
Something like peace.