Nocrim doesn’t feel like she’s moving fast, more like she’s moving through a thin fog while everybody else just hangs out. It’s only after several seconds (but not seconds) that she realizes she hasn’t breathed yet; her body won’t need oxygen for a while.

Curiously, she circles around a frozen Cayvie, and then she sees the trail. Dark, gray, like thick smoke, it fills the space she’s moved through–a reverse Pompeii shape. It fades toward her as she watches.

Photons, she makes herself think. Just space where the light can’t keep up. That has to be it, because if not…