I approached. Slowly. One step after the other, like one slides toward a truth one does not want to hear, but that imposes itself nonetheless, soft and icy, implacable.
And they… they did not move. Not a gesture. Not a shiver. Not a breath in their chalky matter. Not even that faint tension that the living sometimes produce when they watch the intruder. No. They remained there, suspended in their calm muteness, as if frozen in a waiting that asked for nothing.
But I could feel them.
I felt their eyeless gazes, their unconscious vigils, their sockets full of a light too ancient to be seen, too soft to be feared, too heavy to be ignored. They weren't looking at me. It wasn't that. It wasn't a vision. Not an assessment. Not a judgment.
They were reading me.
