the way the air seemed to thin out around them, like a vacuum had just formed, that was the exact temperature my own skin used to feel, remembering that precise internal SHIVER that had nothing to do with cold but everything to do with a sudden, absolute emptiness. it wasn't the gut-wrenching fall anymore, not for me, just a ripple across a surface that has finally learned how to hold itself. my diaphragm still tightens, an autonomic echo, a brief phantom compression that reminds me how completely it used to collapse.