The building was silent.
Not the peaceful kind of silence that came with an empty house at midnight, but a suffocating silence—the kind that seemed to have weight, pressing against the walls and settling deep inside the chest.
Rows upon rows of cardboard boxes filled the vast warehouse. Some were stacked nearly to the ceiling, while others sat carelessly on the concrete floor, surrounded by rolls of plastic, discarded packaging, wooden crates, rusted metal frames, and pipes that had pr