All the sound was gone from the world, and it had been like that for a while. At least as long as Darius had been alive and many years before that. The Great Event happened more than a century ago, the story repeated so many times that it had become a legend. It was a pandemic, an infectious disease that altered the course of human history and turned everyone deaf.

The sound never returned, but humans are resilient creatures and found a way to persist and keep society moving. Sign language became familiar and more complex, and there was still the written word. But to live with no sound? Many grieved the loss deeply, and things such as music ceased to exist.