The first shock was the utter cessation of sound.<br/><br/>There is always some sound.  No matter how quiet it is, the modern world is never truly silent.  The buzz of machinery, the distant sound of cars, the whistle of the wind.  Everything makes a tiny noise, and that all adds up to a background sound you hear for your whole life.  You tune it out; to you, it is silence.  True silence is not something normal humans ever encounter.<br/><br/>Olivia had been listening as her friend begged her to do horrible things to her.  Mike had been listening to Jeffery Trevino taking advantage of an innocent freshman.  The constant babble of school all around them made the sudden silence all the more jarring.<br/><br/>No, wait.  There was a sound.  Rhythmic.  Constant.  A heartbeat.  Their own heartbeats continued in the world of silence, seemingly amplified by the lack of any other sound to drown it out.  Once they remembered to breath, that too was a sound.<br/><br/>It took their minds several long second to process what had happened.  The world had stopped.  Simply frozen around them.  Nothing moved; it was like looking at a still picture, a freeze frame of the school.  No wait.  Something moved.  As they looked around, their eyes found each other.<br/><br/>Mike Newton and Olivia Turrow were the two moving pieces in a static world.