Echo a tragedy through my heart.

The gunshot echoed through the hall.

The laws of time were forsaken; the turning of the axis waned, and even the rain's descent seemed to slow. The sound was sharp; it reverberated through the air around him, through his skin and bone. It seemed to tear a hole deep in his chest, breaking the veins and spilling the blood. Cold fingers reached for the wound that was not there, clutching to the stainless satin of his shirt. The pain was clear; it was a promise, and it could never be broken, not until it was fulfilled. Wide, amethyst eyes looked on through the darkness, feeling a pain that had never before existed. It was her that he felt; as she fell, as the blood escaped her, as her mind was banished from a living world. She was alone, and he knew her desolation; the darkness, the agony, the longing to be free. It had engulfed them, and her pain was now his. His knees met with the floor, and he slipped out of the tight grasp of another.

"Get up!" a voice ordered. But the sound was lost in the rushing, deafening roar of silence.