When the fragments aligned again in the world he had left, he did not feel shock.
He felt inevitability.
The configuration resolved.
The weapon was built.
It was used.
He did not see the city vanish.
He felt disturbance — not spectacle.
An absence where something had stood.
He could not trace the boundary between action and consequence.
He had removed himself.
The world had continued.
The waiting deepened.
He began to suspect he had not prevented catastrophe.
He had stepped away from it.
Those are not the same.