In the thick of the velvet night, words floated untethered, like leaves in slow descent. Lila reached out, fingers brushing against syllables that sparkled with midnight dew.
"Do you hear them too?" she asked the void, aware only of the pulse of darkness.
A voice, not bound to place or person, answered, "They sing beneath the layers of time. Whispers of stories forgotten."
She laughed, an echo that seemed to bounce in loops around the room, defying the walls, the inches, the gravity that held all things down.