In the renewed silence, Padmini looks around the empty city that she’s grown to love. She gets why, now: it’s because there’s still a spark of personality here, left over from its better days—or maybe that’s just the indestructible core of any city, which lingers after its death. Maybe she likes it here because this is a city she would’ve gotten along with well, if its avatar had not been lost. The ghost of best friends never met. She wonders if it hurt, when—
